October 30th, 2025

Posted by Ayala Sorotsky

Hello, fellow feline pawrents - you know, you who parent cats, you who adopted a fluffy family member, you who are purroud to call your cat your "kitty kid". Because that's just how it is if you're a cat pawrent, it means you have a cat in your family that you take care of, that you protect, that you adore, that you provide for. That's kind of the starting condition of being, you know, a cat parent. You need to parent a cat.

Apparently, this is a fact not understood by some people. Don't believe us? Yeah, we wouldn't believe us either if we didn't read this next story. There's a person in the world who had the desire (the very benevolent one, we have to admit) to adopt a cat - so he chose a cat to adopt, and immediately gave her to a friend because he couldn't keep the kitten for many life troubles. He promised to provide for her, food, sand, toys - like a true cat pawrent should - but instead, he vanished into thin air. Ghosted the friend who agreed to keep his kitten safe in the meantime. When he does communicate, he says it might take him years until he can pick "his" cat up.

Can you believe it? We didn't either, in the beginning. This is ridiculous. You can't "adopt" a cat, but then expect someone else to take care of them, vet bills and all. Especially if the caretaker friend is still in high school. Did we mention this is a kid who takes up a responsibility like that, as a man? Yeah, the situation is complicated. But at least the cat is in good hands.

Posted by Blake Seidel

Your life changes when you become a pawrent. You have something to look forward to after coming home from a long day at the office. Vacations are no longer desired to be endless; you crave coming home to be reunited with your fur baby. Even your schedule changes to revolve around making sure you spend enough quality time with them, and don't even get us started on mealtime. But it's not even those big things that make the purrfectly everlasting change that happens after you adopt your first cat child - it's all the silly memories that come after.

Every cat has their own unique purrsonality - and you'll quickly learn yours (you won't have a choice). They may prefer to drink out of your water glass rather than a bowl of water, they may use the toilet instead of the litter box, or you might find out that they have a hilarious addiction to watching the 90s cartoons. You can prepurr yourself for many parts of pawrenthood, but nothing can prepare you for the attachment you'll feel to your cat and how silly your life will be. 

For all you potential pawrents looking to adopt, we've gathered some purrfect posts showing you the truly hissterical side of cat parenthood. It's not all sunshine and rainbows, but we can guarantee you that your life will never be boring ever again.

posted by [syndicated profile] in_the_pipeline_feed at 12:10pm on 30/10/2025

Here’s another example of an idea that has been kicking around for years in medicinal chemistry without ever really breaking through: substituting a silicon atom for a carbon. To be fair, most of the time this doesn’t seem to do all that much, while introducing various uncertainties around ADME and toxicity (since we don’t have all that much experience with organosilanes as drugs). So you can see why we’re not overrun with “silyl switch” compounds. But at the same time, there really do seem to be instances where it can help.

For instance, there was (is?) a camptothecin derivative, known variously as karenitecin, cositecan, or BNP1350, that had an alkylsilyl side chain that was claimed to help it be less prone to being removed by efflux pumps. As far as I can tell, this one has kicked around in a number of Phase I and II trials without ever advancing. And a silane analog of haloperidol did indeed show a different (and quite possibly beneficial) metabolic profile, but I don’t think that one even made it to the clinic. As I mentioned in that blog post linked in the first paragraph, I sent in a trimethylsilyl-for-t-butyl switch compound one time in an analoging program, and I have to say that the response from the project team was not a favorable one. But as often happens, there seemed to be no particular advantage to the TMS analog, so it didn’t become an issue, other than in the “Please don’t do that again” way.

This new paper (first link in the post) is a silyl-containing KIF18A kinesin inhibitor, which is class of compounds with several representatives, some of which are in the clinic already for susceptible cancers. Like the example mentioned above, this switch (a silapiperidine for plain piperidine) seems to have improved efflux stability. I’m not completely sure how this occurs, though - the silicon analogs are a big less hydrophilic, but what efflux transport proteins like and dislike is still a mystery to me (and no, not just to me!) 

I find it hard to believe that “silicon slows down efflux pumping” will turn out to be a general rule, but I think it’s an idea that’s worth testing if your particular project is having that sort of trouble. Just be ready for some pushback! We’ll see if this compound (ATX020) advances. The company behind it (Accent Therapeutics) is calling it a “tool compound”, but we’ll see if they have the nerve (or the need!) to take a similar organosilane into human trials. . .

Posted by Mariel Ruvinsky

The life of a stray kitten is something so beyond complicated and difficult that we cannot even really imagine it. We know that they are out there, fighting for territory and food, but there are so many dangers out there for them beyond just that. Kittens are tiny and curious by nature, and the world is huge. It only takes a few wrong steps to suddenly lose momma cat somewhere on the street, and once a kitten is out there on its own, anything can happen. 

We can only imagine how terrified this kitten must have been when she encountered this pack of dogs in the middle of the street, and when they took her and started playing with her, only to then drop her right in the middle of a busy road. Momma wasn't nearby to save her, but thankfully, someone else was. This man stopped his car and ran to her the second he realized that she was still alive. He saved her life, took her home, and adopted her, and if we can, then that's what we should all strive to do when we see an animal in need out there in the big scary world. 

Posted by Mariel Ruvinsky

It's finally chilly outside, and we don't know about you, but this is our favorite time of year. Halloween is almost here, Christmas feels like it's right around the corner, hot cocoas are a staple every evening in our houses yet again, and we're just feeling the best that we have felt all year long. There's something in the air. Hope, maybe. For a better end to this year, a non-dramatic one, unlike what the rest of the year has felt. All that is missing for us right now, at this very moment, is something that will make us smile. And we have what you need right here - a whole bunch of purrfect cat memes

These funny cat memes are not just any though. This collection of cat memes has been carefully curated by us to feel like a warm snuggle on a chilly fall day. It makes you laugh just enough to warm you on the inside, it makes you smile, it makes you forget the drama for a second and just embrace the moment. It's purrfection. 

Posted by Laurent Shinar

When it gets to this later point in the week, things start to feel fracking frustrating. And with all that pent-up energy sloshing around your soul, it can be incredibly tough to keep your mind focused and sharp on your work that you still need to get done. That is why we are proud to be introducing to you this collection of funny feline photos that will diligently deliver your much-needed daily dose of CBT - Cattitude Based Therapy.

A new form of feline therapy which harnesses the feisty feline energy that catalyses Cattitude, giving you a concentrated dose of dramatic attitude that you can use to ward off those who would displease, anger or distract you in your place of work. But be warned, this is some pretty powerful stuff, and looking at it for too long can cause feline fatigue, which is why we recommend following this with a collection of cute cat children to balance things out.
 

Posted by Ayala Sorotsky

Hello, fellow feline fans, it's the day before Halloween, that magical time when the air smells faintly of pumpkin spice, half the neighborhood is covered in fake cobwebs, and our cats are one spooky shadow away from accidentally scaring us to death. It's the almost Halloween mood - the excitement is bubbling, the costumes are ready (or maybe the cats have already shredded them), and we're just counting down the hours until spooky o'clock finally arrives.

But how do we pass the time until then? With cat memes, of course! Because let's be honest - cats and Halloween are kindred spirits. They're mysterious, dramatic, slightly chaotic, and occasionally seen sprinting across the room at invisible forces. You don't need ghosts when your cat already stares at walls like they're haunted.

So while we wait for trick-or-treaters to show up tomorrow and for our cats to knock over the pumpkin display for the fifteenth time, let's settle into the purrfect pre-Halloween tradition: scrolling through some hissing humor. These hissterical cat memes will boost your spirits, tickle your funny bone, and get you through that final spooky countdown in the most feline way possible. Because honestly - if Halloween is for witches and ghosts, today is for cat lovers and memes.

Posted by Blake Seidel

We love dogs (not as much as we love cats, obviously), but they do tend to dominate the pet world. It seems like every pet event is geared towards doggos, and we get it - dogs love going outside much more than cats. But what about us pawrents with cats who love to be social? With fluffy felines who like to go outside and pawticipate in events? On the rare occasions that we've taken one of our cats out with us, it was usually the dogs who couldn't behave around them. 99% of the time, it's not our cat who is the problem.

We, as pawrents, also love to show them off in their cute costumes. They love the attention they get while wearing them, and we would love to take them to a trick-or-treat event for pets, like the one below. However, we would be purrfectly peeved if we showed up with our cat in a cute costume, only to be turned away because they only expected dogs to show up. And that's exactly what happened. 

A cute banana cat showed up at a local PetSmart trick-or-treat event, only to be turned away because the "pet" event was only meant for dogs. Well, cats are pets too, aren't they? They went home with a very disappointed kitty, and the cat community came to their aid by making a furrmal complaint to PetSmart and showing off all their cute costumed cats to make the sad banana feel better. See more kitties and drama below!

October 29th, 2025
posted by [syndicated profile] icanhascheezburger_feed at 11:00pm on 29/10/2025

Posted by Lana DeGaetano

When the world gets dark and gray, aim to tend to the light. The light in question? A ray of sunshine in the form of cat memes, of course!

Summer is definitely long gone… and so are the days of sunsets at 8 PM, shorts and t-shirts, and the warmth of the sun on our exposed skin. Everything must come to an end, but the changing of the seasons is a reminder that we will experience warmth again. We've kicked off fall, and with that comes a responsibility to ourselves and our favorite furry felines to remain in good spirits throughout the cold weather of autumn and winter. Most people dislike the frigid temperatures, but some of you find solace in the slow, calm energy that cold weather brings.

Even if all of you pet parents enjoy the cold weather, we all must get some vitamin D in somehow! Take your supplements and go for a stroll… and, (cough cough), look at some feline funnies that'll bring the color back to your cheeks and a smile on that purrfect face of yours! At the end of the day, we'd all rather be couch potatoes in temperatures under 50 degrees, so boosting our moods indoors is the next-best thing. Scroll below to get your day started with a smile.

Posted by Bar Mor Hazut

The cat distribution system works in mysterious ways; anyone who has ever had the chance of experiencing it in real life knows that. One thing we do know is that you almost never expect to be the recipient of the system, and the cat that you are distributed is always full of surprises.

The CDS story below is the purrfect example of how sometimes one gets handed a cat in an unexpected way. This homeowner set a trap out to catch a gopher, and instead they caught a beautiful cat, one that was definitely brought to them by the cat distribution system.

Naturally, as it was definitely not a gopher, they decided to free the sweet feline and welcome him into their home. 

The cat, now named Skittles, is adjusting to his new home, and we couldn't have been happier for him and his new family for this exciting addition!

Keep scrolling to read the full story, and look at some awwdorable pictures of sweet Skittles and his family. After that, check out these hissterical cat memes special for the fall season.

posted by [syndicated profile] in_the_pipeline_feed at 12:04pm on 29/10/2025

I think that I can guarantee that you haven’t heard this phrase before: “ballistic microscopy”, the subject of this recent preprint. What the authors describe a combination of near-medieval technology on the one hand and cutting-edge analytical work on the other. They are bombarding cells with focused streams of gold nanoparticles (which range from 50 to 1000 nm diameter). These things are traveling at speeds up to 1 km/sec (over 2000 miles per hour (edit: fixed!)) and blast straight through their cellular targets. That’s a thickness of 2 to 4 microns for something like a HEK cell, and those velocities mean that the transit takes only a few picoseconds.

They come out the other side of the cell and splat into a hydrogel matrix on the other side. They’ve already slowed down a bit from their passage through the cell, and the hydrogel brings them to a halt. But when you examine them there, you find that they have carried along small amounts of the cellular material with them. It’s only a few attoliters, but by gosh that’s enough for current proteomic, nucleic acid, and cryo-EM techniques to get a handle on what’s in there. So what you get is an instantaneous snapshot of the cellular contents from a very small, very well defined needle-stick through a living cell. (People have actually done that, sampling cells with micro-needles and micro-straws, but this seems to be a step further). 

You can tell that the authors are enjoying themselves: the technique itself is abbreviated BaM, and the hydrogel sample obtained is referred to as a “SPLAT-MAP”. (If that’s an acronym it seems to be undefined in the manuscript!) You get a lot of information from doing fluorescent imaging while the bombardment is underway - location of the particle stream hitting the cell (complete with streaks through the cytoplasm in high-speed side views), xy spatial distribution on the hydrogel itself, and depth (z) which is dependent on the size of the particles involved. 

The group tested this in lysate from cells that had been expressing GFP-labled actin protein, and sure enough: the particles entrained fluorescent bits of cell material that corresponded to the labeled protein. And those particles penetrated less into the hydrogel braking material than control particles that were shot in directly, showing that they had experienced drag from schlorking through the cellular contents (my term, which all are welcome to if this technique catches on). Moving on to real cells, HEK293 cells were stained for nuclear membrane and cell membrane (to aid in IDing the now-fluorescent particles after capture), and they could be cultured right on top of the hydrogel surface. 

If the fluorescent label was applied instead to another protein, then everything around that protein could be checked out. This was done with the known condensate-former CLIP170, and the nanoparticles pulled condensate droplets right out of the cell. Proteomic analysis showed 641 proteins (with a large number of them annotated as RNA binders, which fits with previous condensate work). One was keratin-18, which hadn’t been seen in these before but which seems to form filaments inside the droplets. But about 17% of them are unannotated, which is just the sort of thing you’d like to dredge up with a method like this. 

Electron microscopy of the particles and their associated cellular samples showed that the cell contents that were brought along tended to be bunched up on the high-curvature edges of the gold particles (and not wetting the entire surface) and that they tended to be membrane-enclosed, sometimes with more than one membrane layer. There’s going to have to be more work done to interpret that, but it does seem significant (and might represent a type of sampling bias with this technique?)

There are a lot of things to be done in general! Zapping all sorts of cellular substructures, in both healthy and diseased or stressed cells, is an obvious set of experiments, and it’ll be interesting to see if some protein distribution maps can be produced from such runs. It’s certainly a new label-free assay technique, and I urge everyone interested in it to fire away and collect piles of data!

posted by [syndicated profile] icanhascheezburger_feed at 05:00pm on 29/10/2025

Posted by Sarah Brown

Nothing captures pure feline perfection quite like a good cat loaf. With paws tucked neatly beneath and a calm, confident stare, it's the ultimate pose of peace and quiet contentment. Loafing isn't just a resting position. Ot's a whole mood, a sign that a kitty feels cozy, safe, and entirely in control of their little kingdom.

Some cats nail the art of loafing so precisely they look like freshly baked buns straight from the oven, while others prefer the "imperfectly perfect" style, with a paw or tail sneaking out for character. Either way, it's a masterclass in relaxation and warmth.

Cats have a special talent for finding the softest, warmest spots for their loafing sessions whether it's a blanket, a sunlit patch on the floor, or the exact middle of your laptop keyboard. Wherever they park themselves, they remind everyone that peace doesn't have to be complicated. Sometimes, happiness is just staying still, getting comfy, and loafing the day away like a pro.

Posted by Sarah Brown

Sometimes the Cat Distribution System knows exactly when to deliver, and three weeks ago, it brought pure perfection named Misty. On a regular morning, this sweet gray fluff decided her new hooman was the one. One leg rub, a few confident head bonks, and that was it. She had officially adopted her person. Despite her matted fur and tired eyes, Misty's heart was full of love from the very first moment.

Since arriving, she has been the calmest, most affectionate little cloud of joy, settling into her new home in no time. She is still figuring out the fun of toys, but she already loves her scratching boards and quiet cuddle sessions. At around seven years old, Misty has a few health hurdles ahead, yet she finally has the care and comfort she has always needed.

From the streets to soft blankets and gentle pets, Misty's story is a reminder that sometimes love finds you when you least expect it, and it looks a lot like a tiny gray cat with a big heart.

Posted by Briana Viser

Good morning, cat owners and enthusiasts of the world. When you're a humble cat owner, there's nothing more important that gets you out of bed other than your precious, fluffy, furry feline friend. You wake up not to the beeping of an alarm, but the soft nudges of your cute cat trying to get you out of your torpor slumber. From first meows of the day to having breakfast together, your cat isn't just a cat, he or she is your partner in the world as you move through the waking hours of the day. You pour your morning coffee and sit with your cat before the hustle and bustle of the day begins. 

As you sit at your mundane and monotonous day job, counting the hours till 5 pm, you think back to those waking hours with your kitty. What better way to remind yourself of your cute bundle of joy waiting for you at home other than a scroll through adorable, wholesome, and hilarious cat memes? 

posted by [syndicated profile] xkcd_feed at 04:00am on 29/10/2025

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