Did anyone try the smells science experiment with your cat last week? Did your cat have any preferences? How did it react to the catnip?

My cat was not crazy about the white sheet of paper I was using as a mat. Eventually I had to dampen the tips of my fingers, dip them in the spice or herb, and then present the finger to the cat. She got excited about cinnamon, and pretty much ignored the rest. I didn’t have any catnip to offer her, but in the past she has rolled in it, eaten some, and then she gets kind of wacky. She’s definitely in the 70% of cats that react.

I wanted to write up a science experiment about cat sound communication, but I found a couple of other websites to share, so I think I’ll hold that until next weekend.

The first website is from Germany. Instead of a person taking pictures of a cat, this website shows pictures taken by Fritz the cat while he is wearing a webcam around his neck. Some of the pictures are what you would expect, the underside of a car and someone’s feet. I was totally blown away by how much the cat was apparently looking at the sky and the trees. I guess I never realized a creature so close to the ground would be interested in the sky. Take a look at Fritz’s “Cam-Galerie” and see what life looks like from a cat’s eye view.

The Curious Cat Science and Engineering blog has a brief, but interesting post on blinking in cats. You might want to take a look around this site, because there are regular Friday posts called “Friday Cat Fun.”

Finally, here is an easy experiment to find out whether your cat is right or left pawed at the Scholastic Science World website. To tell you the truth, I hadn’t thought much about it. I’ll have to go ask my cat. Let me know what you find out from your cat, too.