This man makes armor for cats (and mice)

December 22, 2022
by RJ Hamster

Thursday, December 22, 2022

In today’s newsletter, we examine promising developments in a vaccine for cancer, meet the artist who creates armor for cats and mice, see how the world’s most powerful space telescope makes new discoveries, learn how the poinsettia became the Christmas flower … and find out how Joseph and Mary got together.

PHOTOGRAPHS BY CHRISTIE HEMM KLOK

You want to give your pet every advantage it can get, right? But armor?

For 36 years, artist Jeff de Boer has made armor for cats and mice—a wildly popular niche—but he doesn’t count on the animals actually morphing into mini-medieval warriors. Rather, his museum-quality work, such as the “samurai” cat armor shown above, jolts people’s imagination and calls forth the hero in underdogs.

We can’t stop looking.

Read the full story here.

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Intricate: Most of the animal armor is fashioned from 50 to 300 separate pieces, including tiny rivets. What inspired the artist? For one, Walt Disney, he responded. Like Walt, “It all started with a mouse.” Read more.

STORIES WE’RE FOLLOWING

PHOTOGRAPH BY STEVE GSCHMEISSNER, SCIENCE PHOTO LIBRARY

Cancer-treating vaccines are showing promise. What do we know about them? Pictured above, two T lymphocyte cells (yellow) attached to a cancer cell (green).

How the parents of Jesus got together

Where was this biblical villain buried? It was hidden for centuries.

How fentanyl kills—and Narcan saves lives

Despite the warning, the Titanic was doomed

What archaeology tells us about the real Jesus

How did the poinsettia become the Christmas flower?

This riverside community has one of the highest concentrations of Buddhist temples in the world? Where is it?

The new year once started in March—here’s why.

What’s it like living in the polar bear capital of the world?

WHERE IN THE WORLD?

PHOTOGRAPH BY @PAOLOVERZONE

Where is this strange alien material? See that colorful rock (above)? It came from outer space—and crashed to Earth in 1751. It became the foundation of the world’s oldest meteorite collection, with a pattern (seen on this slice) of iron-nickel crystals unique to meteorites. Where is this rock now? Click here to find out.

WHERE’S THIS ROCK?

LAST GLIMPSE

LEFT: IMAGE BY NASA, ESA, CSA, STSCI; IMAGE PROCESSING: JOSEPH DEPASQUALE (STSCI), ALYSSA PAGAN (STSCI); RIGHT: IMAGE BY NASA, ESA, CSA, STSCI; IMAGE PROCESSING: JOSEPH DEPASQUALE (STSCI), ANTON M. KOEKEMOER (STSCI), ALYSSA PAGAN (STSCI)

Behind the dust: The world’s most powerful space telescope is piercing through the cosmic dust that shrouded much of the universe, leaving scientists in awe. Normally, the interstellar dust is “like being in a smoky room,” says Jane Rigby, the operations project scientist with the James Webb Space Telescope. But infrared light (capturing a thunderstorm of gas and dust, above left) is the key to this breakthrough, Nat Geo reports. (Above right, another Webb camera peers nearly formed stars in and behind the Pillars of Creation region in the Eagle Nebula.)

Today’s soundtrack: Slow Burn, Kacey Musgraves

This newsletter was curated and edited by David Beard, Sydney Combs, and Jen Tse. Do you have an idea or a link for the newsletter? Let us know at david.beard@natgeo.com. If you want our daily newsletter, sign up here. Have a good weekend ahead.

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RJ Hamster

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This man makes armor for cats (and mice)

This man makes armor for cats (and mice)

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