Idea: free to good home

Having just read a pleasing discussion of why you don't want your cat to know how to flush the toilet, it occured to me that it would be possible to make water play systems for cats. It would at least have a flushable, recirculating basin with a control that doesn't look anything like a toilet handle (possibly a floor pedal) and a dripping pipe for batting droplets--the drips would fall onto a soft surface so as not to drive people crazy.

It wouldn't be cheap, but there's a market for people who buy expensive things for cats.

Idea: free to good home

Having just read a pleasing discussion of why you don't want your cat to know how to flush the toilet, it occured to me that it would be possible to make water play systems for cats. It would at least have a flushable, recirculating basin with a control that doesn't look anything like a toilet handle (possibly a floor pedal) and a dripping pipe for batting droplets--the drips would fall onto a soft surface so as not to drive people crazy.

It wouldn't be cheap, but there's a market for people who buy expensive things for cats.

Dare to be boring

There's been recent news that a species of mustard can have paired mutant genes but still produce normal offspring. The current tentative explanation is that the plant (and perhaps many other species) maintains a copy of the good genes--perhaps its entire genome--which can sometimes override mutations.

While I generally prefer that the world be weirder than it looks, I'm betting that the particular mutation is unstable and has a small chance of reverting to the normal form on its own.

Dare to be boring

There's been recent news that a species of mustard can have paired mutant genes but still produce normal offspring. The current tentative explanation is that the plant (and perhaps many other species) maintains a copy of the good genes--perhaps its entire genome--which can sometimes override mutations.

While I generally prefer that the world be weirder than it looks, I'm betting that the particular mutation is unstable and has a small chance of reverting to the normal form on its own.