The Human Need to Matter & The Enduring Appeal of Cats

You’ve probably been told to be grateful for what you have — but that advice isn’t just feel-good wisdom. Research shows that intentionally expressing gratitude can actually change how your brain functions, influencing mood, focus, and emotional resilience. This episode begins with what gratitude really does inside your head — and why it’s more powerful than it sounds. https://www.thecut.com/2016/01/how-expressing-gratitude-change-your-brain.html There’s a basic human need we rarely talk about, yet it quietly shapes how people behave: the need to matter – to feel significant. When people feel seen and valued they tend to thrive. When they don’t, the consequences can be serious — for individuals and for society. Jennifer Breheny Wallace joins me to explain why mattering is so essential and how it affects relationships, motivation, and well-being. She’s an award-winning journalist and author of Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose. (https://amzn.to/4r0ZX6W). Cats are the second most popular pets in the United States — yet many people don’t understand the appeal at all. Cats can seem aloof, independent, and uninterested in pleasing us. So why have humans kept cats as companions for thousands of years? And what do cat lovers get from the relationship that others miss? Jerry Moore explains the long, surprising history of cats and why they continue to captivate us. He’s a professor emeritus of anthropology at California State University, Dominguez Hills, and author of Cat Tales: A History (https://amzn.to/4sUBPEU) And finally, when you’re sick with a cold or the flu, some old-fashioned home remedies actually have science on their side. They may not cure you — but they can make being sick a little less miserable. We wrap up with which remedies help and why they work. https://www.consumerreports.org/health/truth-about-home-remedies-for-colds Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Speaker 00

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• 0:28Mike Carruthers?

  Today on Something You Should Know, how the simple act of expressing gratitude can actually change your brain. Then, the human need to matter, to be significant. We all have it, and it's powerful.

• 0:45Speaker 02

  After the need for food and shelter, it is the need to matter that shapes our behavior. People will go to desperate measures to prove they matter, even in a negative way.

• 1:00Mike Carruthers?

  Also, home remedies that really work when you have a cold. And cats. They're aloof, mysterious, yet they're the second most popular pet there is.

• 1:10Speaker 03

  I think that cats fall into this category of what we think of as charismatic species. And this is a term that comes out of wildlife biology for animals, and in some cases, plants, that seem to really attract human attention.

• 1:26Mike Carruthers?

  All this today on Something You Should Know.

• 1:32Speaker 04

  Something You Should Know. Fascinating intel, the world's top experts, and practical advice you can use in your life. Today, Something You Should Know, with Mike Carruthers.

• 1:45Mike Carruthers?

  So I'm sure you've heard the advice to be thankful for what you have. Have gratitude. Well, what is that supposed to do for you, exactly? Well, I'm about to tell you, as we begin this episode of Something You Should Know. Studies have consistently shown that intentional gratitude practices, like keeping a gratitude journal, or writing gratitude letters, or just reflecting on what you're thankful for, are linked with improved well-being, reduced stress, and stronger emotional health.

• 2:16Mike Carruthers?

  Researchers have even started looking at what's happening in the brain when people practice gratitude. Brain scanning studies show that gratitude exercises activate regions in the brain involved in reward, emotional regulation, and social connection. And the neural sensitivity related to gratitude can persist weeks or even months after a short gratitude intervention. In other words, gratitude doesn't just feel good in the moment. It appears to train your brain to notice positive experiences more readily, and respond with less stress and more positive emotion down the road. Thinking of your brain as having a kind of gratitude muscle that you can exercise through

• 2:59Mike Carruthers?

  simple activities like journaling or letter writing isn't just metaphorical. There's growing evidence that it reflects real changes in your brain. And that is something you should know.

• 3:15Mike Carruthers?

  There's a basic human need we almost never talk about, but it quietly drives a lot of what we do. It is the need to matter, to feel seen, to know what you do and who you are actually counts. Most of us will go to surprising lengths to feel that sense of significance. We chase it at work, at home, online, in relationships. And when we don't get it, when we feel invisible or disposable, it doesn't just feel bad, it can lead to real problems, from burnout and anxiety, to risky behavior and bad decisions. So why is the need to matter so powerful? What happens when it's missing?

• 3:57Mike Carruthers?

  And how do you build a sense of mattering that is not dependent on constant approval or achievement? That's what we're going to explore with Jennifer Breheny Wallace. She's an award-winning journalist and author of the book, "Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose." Hi Jennifer, welcome. Glad to have you on Something You Should Know.

• 4:18Speaker 02

  Oh, thanks so much for having me.

• 4:20Mike Carruthers?

  So I get the concept. I know what it means to want to matter. But you've studied this pretty deeply. So what is that? What does mattering mean to you?

• 4:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, I thought I knew what it meant to matter. I had this, you know, it's a word we hear kicked around. But what I found fascinating is that not only do we all have it, not only is it a universal human need, but that it is the driver of human behavior, for better or for worse. So what I mean by that is, you know, after the the need for food and shelter, it is the need to matter, the drive to matter, that shapes our behavior. When we feel like we matter to each other, to our communities, to our workplaces, we show up to the world in positive ways.

• 5:12Speaker 02

  We want to contribute. We want to engage and connect. But when we are chronically made to feel like we don't matter, which is what we are seeing on a global level today, we often withdraw. We become anxious, depressed, turn to substances to try to alleviate that ache, that pain. Or we can lash out in anger. Think of road rage, think of online attacks and political extremes. People will go to desperate measures to prove they matter, even in a negative way.

• 5:48Mike Carruthers?

  And what is the difference? Because I imagine there is a big difference between mattering and feeling like you matter. That I imagine a lot of people matter, but they don't feel like they do. They don't have any validation of that. But they actually, objectively, really do matter.

• 6:06Speaker 02

  Yes, I it. So mattering is a felt experience. So you could matter and not feel like you matter. And so, as you point out, it is critical that we Really create this new social norm where we connect people to the impact that they have. So the reason people often feel like they don't matter is because no one tells them that they do. Uh, no one sort of circles back. They offer advice to someone, but you, they don't know if that advice was taken. Um, they believe, you know, they might even be going through the world with a deep sense of, of purpose.

• 6:48Speaker 02

  But if their efforts are never acknowledged, that sense of purpose can fade and actually lead to burnout. So it is important to matter, but perhaps it's most important to feel like you matter. Um, and I will say it, we are not necessarily dependent on others to, uh, connect to our impact. Yes, as social creatures, we are, um, you know, we crave that social proof that we matter, that who we are and what we do make a difference.

• 7:27Speaker 02

  But there are everyday ways that we can connect to our impact that could help us feel like we matter if we are questioning it.

• 7:37Mike Carruthers?

  So can you give me an example of that of how do you make yourself feel like you matter when you don't feel like you matter?

• 7:44Speaker 02

  I could tell you something that I've started to do in my own life. I hate to journal, I'll admit it as a writer. I do not feel like journaling after a day of writing. And so I have this 30 second exercise. Before I go to bed, I have a small notebook next to my bed in my top drawer. And I write in it, I answer two questions. When did I feel valued today? And when did I add value today, even in a small way? Right, but those, those days when I am working, you know, 12 hours and writing and sort of sequestered alone in my office, I don't always necessarily feel like I'm adding value. So those days, it might be that I was in the parking lot at the supermarket and it was

• 8:29Speaker 02

  my turn to get this great spot, but I waved somebody else to let them get it. So even in that teeny tiny way, I mattered. I made somebody's day a little easier. I made them smile. So it, it just takes pausing and creating a habit of seeing big and small ways that we make an impact on the world around us.

• 8:53Mike Carruthers?

  So I would imagine somebody's done a survey. If you were to ask people, do you feel like you matter? Is it the majority of people do, the majority of people don't? I mean, where, where, where does that play out?

• 9:07Speaker 02

  I think it depends on life stages. So our sense of mattering, mattering matters throughout the lifespan. It starts from the earliest of days and it matters right up until we pass. But there are certain times of life when our sense of mattering can take a hit. So the adolescent years, when we are building a sense of self and we are searching the world for messages that we matter or we don't matter. When we go through life transitions, getting a new job, relocating, or even, you know,

• 9:48Speaker 02

  especially perhaps negative life transitions, grief, getting fired, empty nesting, these are times when our sense of mattering can really take a hit, when the roles that used to provide a sense of value and meaning, where it was clear where we were adding value, when those roles change, we can really be left wondering, do we matter now?

• 10:17Mike Carruthers?

  Can you talk about and explain what you call the ingredients of mattering?

• 10:23Speaker 02

  Yeah, so I have put them together into a kind of framework that I call the SED framework, so it's easy to remember. So S stands for significance, a feeling of importance. And what I mean by that is not necessarily the importance you feel at a milestone birthday when people are toasting you, or when you receive an award at work. What struck me the most in interviewing hundreds of people about mattering was that they felt significant in the small moments of life. When someone remembered something about them, when their preferences were remembered. So importance and significance, it's really about mattering in the details, mattering

• 11:08Speaker 02

  in the mundane things of life, feeling like you are remembered. Appreciation is the next ingredient. That is feeling appreciated for who you are inside, not just what you do. So, for example, if you have a friend who buys you a sweater, you can say to them, "Thank you for this beautiful sweater," or you can feed their sense of mattering by appreciating them for who they are. "Thank you for always being the most generous and thoughtful friend. I am so lucky to have someone like you in my life." The next ingredient is invested in. It's the idea that there are people in our lives who are invested in our goals and who

• 11:52Speaker 02

  are there to support us through setbacks. And the last ingredient is feeling depended on or relied on. Are there people in your life who depend on you? We live in such a hyper-individualistic culture that we often don't signal to people how much we rely on them or depend on them. And so what I would say to anybody listening is to let the people in your life know that you rely on them. And you can do it in simple ways. You could send a simple text to someone saying, "If it weren't for you..." You know, "If it weren't for you, I wouldn't have had the courage to go for that job interview. Thank you for believing in me before I could even believe in myself."

• 12:37Speaker 02

  So the SED framework really narrow in on the main ingredients to mattering.

• 12:44Mike Carruthers?

  We're talking about the need to matter in the world and my guest is Jennifer Brahini Wallace, author of the book Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose. So Jennifer, I imagine everybody has times in their life where they feel like they don't matter to anybody in particular, they just feel matterless. But you also have to keep in mind that you may feel like you don't matter, but are you showing the people in your life that they matter, that those people are important to you? We get so caught up in our own feelings of not mattering, we forget to remind other people that they matter to us.

• 13:24Speaker 02

  That's exactly right. The fastest way to feel like you matter again is to remind someone else why they do. I'd also, you know, I think about this litmus test. When I'm feeling like I don't matter, or my sense of mattering is taking a hit, I ask myself this one question. I say, "Am I letting people in to see me and know me for who I am deep inside? Am I leaning on my people? Am I opening up? Or do I feel like I need to go through whatever struggle or whatever I'm going through in the busyness of life on my own?"

• 14:04Speaker 02

  People often don't want to invite people into their lives when they're going through something hard. But there's research that I love called the beautiful mess effect, which is the idea that we often overestimate how much people will appreciate us opening up to them. That opening up, revealing a bit of our struggle to others, actually makes us look more authentic and it actually brings people closer to us. So if you're feeling like you don't matter, ask yourself, "Do you have one or two or three people in your life who know you for who you are deep inside?"

• 14:46Speaker 02

  And if you don't, think about ways that you can start to invite those people into your life.

• 14:52Mike Carruthers?

  I don't think anybody gets through life without feeling at some point like they don't matter, or that they matter less than they used to. I mean, it does seem to come and go depending on your life situation.

• 15:04Speaker 02

  That's exactly right. I mean, mattering is not some sort of trophy that we win and we put up on our shelves. It is fluid. And there are moments in life when we feel almost like we matter too much. I mean, that's the other end of the spectrum. When you are a busy parent or a caretaker, you can feel like you matter way too much. But that too is not a true sense of mattering. That is almost a false sense of mattering. True mattering is about feeling valued and adding value to others, but also feeling valued and adding

• 15:43Speaker 02

  value to ourselves. So in those moments when either I feel like I matter too much, or maybe I'm not feeling like I matter at all, one thing you can start to do to turn that around is to really focus on mattering to yourself in small ways. So I'll talk about it from the perspective of a busy parent. I am the parent of three children. And I often felt like it was my job to meet everybody else's needs. And if there was time left at the end of the day, maybe I could meet a need of my own. But often, weeks went by when

• 16:22Speaker 02

  no, none of my needs were met. But what I found was that that burned me out. I wasn't thriving when I was allowing that to happen. And so, advice that I would give anybody who is in that sort of struggle of mattering too much, is to think about every day, one small need for yourself that you could fill, so that you can show up as your best self for the people who rely on you. And it might be something small. It might be, you know, I want to sit for a half hour and read my book uninterrupted, sipping my coffee. Or

• 17:03Speaker 02

  for another woman that I interviewed who had two small children, for one hour a day... She would take a walk, which was a kind of meditative walk. It wasn't for exercise. It was it was simply to come back to herself and to show herself that she was a priority too. So if you are struggling with feeling like you don't matter, I would say start with mattering to yourself again, finding, getting in touch, tuning in to what you need so that you can show up as your best self. That's number one. And then number two, I would say, ask yourself if you're investing in your friendships.

• 17:47Speaker 02

  Finding one or two people in your life that you can open up to, that you can be vulnerable with, and who will be vulnerable with you. Those relationships feed our sense of mattering. They remind us that we matter for who we are.

• 18:03Mike Carruthers?

  You mentioned at the very beginning, you know, that a symptom of feeling like you don't matter might be something like road rage, which, you know, it doesn't seem on the surface to be connected, so connect it for me.

• 18:16Speaker 02

  Yeah, so mattering is a deep human need that we inherited from our earliest ancestors. It's an evolutionary need. We need to know that we are valued by our band or our group. And so when we are made to feel like we don't matter, we will act out in ways as if to say, oh, I don't matter. I'll show you I matter. And that is what road rage is, right? Somebody feels cut off, either literally or figuratively. And so they are asserting their sense of mattering. Oh, I will show you I matter. So it's almost like demanding attention, demanding it.

• 19:01Speaker 02

  Once you see the world through the lens of mattering, you cannot unsee it. You will see that when people are rude to you, incivility, these are signs that they are struggling with a sense of mattering themselves. I'm not saying to let people off the hook, but I'm saying, instead of getting furious and judgmental when people are acting out, you might get curious. What is it that when, are they feeling like they don't matter? What might be going on in this person's life? And again, I'm not saying that you have to excuse it, but instead, maybe you can meet it with a little bit of compassion. There are so many people today struggling with this unmet need to matter.

• 19:46Speaker 02

  And it shows up in anger, it shows up in loneliness, it shows up in disengagement at work. These symptoms that we often look at as kind of separate things are really rooted in mattering, in feeling like I don't matter.

• 20:04Mike Carruthers?

  You know what I'm wondering is, this lack of mattering that you're talking about, that people feel, is this a contemporary problem, do you think? Or has this always happened? Has this always been going on?

• 20:17Speaker 02

  I think that is a great question. And what I will say is, it was first studied, mattering, in 1981. So I don't have data before that day, but I could be pretty assured that back 50 years ago, people struggled with mattering less. And here's why, here's why I believe that is. There were ecosystems, there were neighborhoods, close-knit neighborhoods. People had a social contract at work, where if you worked and you were loyal for 40 years, you would be rewarded with a pension. People felt more connected, there were...

• 20:57Speaker 02

  You know, we were a more religious society. And all the major religions talk about this idea of unconditional worth, unconditional value. So what has happened over the last several decades is that these ecosystems that used to deliver mattering, religious institutions, neighborhoods, workplaces, communities, those have eroded. And so when we are struggling with feeling like we don't matter, we feel it so personally. We do not have backup systems to remind us of our worth. So instead, it makes us feel even more isolated.

• 21:41Speaker 02

  So I do think, and by the way, I think tech has fueled this erosion of mattering and magnified it. Tech has, you know, when you go to Silicon Valley, all of the companies, the startup tech companies, talk about a frictionless experience, that they want the customer to be able to press a button and get their food, get their product, things should be easy. This frictionless life that tech is trying to deliver for us has really lowered our tolerance for friction in our everyday lives. And what are relationships? They are friction makers, right? Humans create friction.

• 22:24Speaker 02

  And so, sitting on our couch and sending a text, or sitting on our couch and scrolling instead of putting on our clothes, going out in the cold, having dinner with a friend where there might be some awkward conversation, or they may say something that disappoints us, that it is very easy to escape relationships in technology. But what it is doing, it is making us feel lonely and like we matter less. And so, all of these things, these ecosystems that no longer exist, tech, you know, selling us this idea that life should be frictionless.

• 23:06Speaker 02

  They really pulled us away from relationships that once delivered pretty regularly this sense of mattering for us. So I do think it's a modern phenomenon. And with the advent of the AI, I think it's only going to get worse if we don't stop name this need that all of us have and understand how to meet it for ourselves and for the people in our lives that we care about.

• 23:34Mike Carruthers?

  Right, yeah. Not only do we need to feel like we matter, but we need to remind other people they do too, because they may not feel like they matter.

• 23:43Speaker 02

  Yes, exactly.

• 23:45Mike Carruthers?

  Well, anybody listening, I think, understands now the importance of mattering and probably always did. But we never talk about this. And, you know, I don't think we've ever had this conversation, this topic on the show before. And I appreciate you coming on and bringing it to the surface so we can understand it better. Jennifer Breheny Wallace has been my guest. The book is called Mattering: The Secret to a Life of Deep Connection and Purpose. And there is a link to her book at Amazon in the show notes. It was great talking to you, Jennifer. Thanks.

• 24:17Speaker 02

  Amazing. Thanks so much.

• 24:23Mike Carruthers?

  So I'll admit something right up front here. I'm a dog person. I've had dogs most of my life. I've had cats, too. I had one really cool cat when I was younger. But overall, I've just never really gotten cats. They seem aloof and independent. They're not especially impressed by humans. And yet, millions of people absolutely love them. In fact, cats are one of the most popular pets in the US, with tens of millions of households owning them. There are upwards of 90 million pet cats roaming around American homes. So I'm clearly missing something. Which raises a bigger question. Why do humans

• 25:07Mike Carruthers?

  bond so strongly with an animal that doesn't seem to need us, at least not the way dogs do? Where did this relationship with cats come from? And why has it lasted for thousands of years? That's what we're digging into today with Jerry Moore. He's an archaeologist, writer, and professor emeritus of anthropology at California State University Dominguez Hills. And he is author of a book called Cat Tales: A History. All right, Jerry, so help me understand cats here, starting with how they became pets in the first place.

• 25:42Speaker 03

  Yeah, that's one of the most interesting and improbable events that I know of in my studies of archaeology. I mean, it's one of the least likely events. Because on the one hand, what happens is that every continent, with the exception of Australia and Antarctica, has a small wild cat that you would think would be suitable for domestication. But in fact, all of our domesticated cats are derived from one species of cat that was found in North Africa and in the Near East.

• 26:23Speaker 03

  And then, not only domesticated, but then spread around the world, and in many places with terrible consequences. But the process by which that transformation from absolutely wild animal to one that's curled up at your feet is one of the most enigmatic events in human prehistory. Because on the one hand, it takes place when humans start not only raising their own food, but more particularly raising grains and storing them to be used throughout the year. So you have like, large storage of harvests.

• 27:04Speaker 03

  But the ironic thing is that that sort of process occurs in different places around the world, including, for example, ancient Mexico and Guatemala, Mesoamerica, or the Andes. And in those places also, there are wild cats that you would think, well, maybe they would have been attracted to the pests that occupy storage bins of corn and things like that. But they weren't. Because there's this other bizarre thing that happens, is that it's not just the fact that people are grazing grain, particularly wheat and barley, in the Near East.

• 27:43Speaker 03

  And then storing it. But at the same time, what we think of as the house mouse, Mus musculus, begins expanding out of the Himalayas of all places, westward into the Near East and the Middle East. And that animal goes into the storage bins, starts reproducing, and creates enough of a dietary basis to attract the wild cats in to eat those mice.

• 28:17Mike Carruthers?

  Okay, so let me recap here. So humans raise grain and store it. And basically, mice find out about the grain, and they like grain, so they show up and they start eating all the grain that's been stored. And there's enough mice that the cats show up and start eating the mice that are eating the grain. But do cats show up naturally? Or people who are raising the grain bring them in to help fight the mouse problem?

• 28:46Speaker 03

  As far as we know, they come in naturally at first. Because they're scenting out, or they're looking for this dense food supply. But very quickly, human beings not only begin to try to control the breeding of cats, which, you know, is a virtually impossible thing to do until you have modern veterinary medicine. But they're treating cats as pets. And we can tell from very early on. So we've got, for example, 10,000-year-old burials on the island of Crete, where a young man in his 20s is dead, has been buried, and he's buried next to his pet cat.

• 29:28Speaker 03

  And we know that the cat is a pet because it's got a necklace around it. It shows no evidence of trauma, so it's been kind of painlessly sacrificed to be with this young man. And so that's a pretty interesting transformation that takes place.

• 29:46Mike Carruthers?

  But in addition to being pets, if I'm remembering this correctly, cats have also been deified. I mean, it seems like in ancient Egypt, cats were thought of spirit-like or god-like creatures, right?

• 30:01Speaker 03

  Oh, absolutely, absolutely. And so, for example, in the New Kingdom of ancient Egypt, there was a goddess, Bubates, who was a goddess of fertility and other sorts of things. And she was frequently envisioned as being a cat. And large numbers of, you know, real cats were mummified and offered in her honor and buried in massive cemeteries on the banks of the Nile. So massive, in fact, that some of those cemeteries were looted in the late 1800s.

• 30:43Speaker 03

  And the mummified animals that were there, cats and other animals, were shipped to England to be used as organic fertilizer.

• 30:52Mike Carruthers?

  But cats, so cats have been coming into people's homes for how long now?

• 30:56Speaker 03

  Oh, I would put, you know, every time an archaeologist say, oh, it only occurred at this time, there's going to be another site that's found that's slightly older. But I would say that somewhere in between, you know, 10,000 to 15,000 years ago, in the Near East, we certainly had interactions with cats.

• 31:14Mike Carruthers?

  So the statistic I read is that there are about 90 million pet cats in the United States. Do you know how many cats in the United States there are that are nobody's pet? And I don't mean, you know, like bobcats, but I mean what look like house cats, but are just feral cats roaming around?

• 31:35Speaker 03

  The estimates for the United States, feral cats in the United States, it's estimated between 50 to 70 million feral cats in the United States.

• 31:49Mike Carruthers?

  What?

• 31:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah. It's an enormous number. And in other places in the world, for example, just last year, New Zealand was in the news because they had to, they organized a nationwide hunting of feral cats because the feral cats are destroying any native wildlife in the area, lizards and squirrels and things of that sort.

• 32:15Mike Carruthers?

  And are the feral cats in the United States, are they naturally occurring? Or are they escaped runaway pet cats that somehow managed to adapt to the outside world?

• 32:30Speaker 03

  Most of them are domesticated cats that get abandoned or have, you know, been allowed to roam and then their owners lost track of them. So that's mostly what it is. And it's, I want to distinguish, when I'm talking about feral cats, I'm not talking about wild cat species like bobcats or mountain lions or things like that. When I talk about feral cats, I mean these kind of house cats gone wild.

• 32:59Mike Carruthers?

  Wow, I had no idea there were that many, because I assumed, wrongful assumption, that those cats wouldn't be able to survive by themselves, that domesticated cats don't have the skills necessary to find food for themselves or whatever.

• 33:19Speaker 03

  No, they do. They do. They're, you know, they have impacts on bird populations, rodent populations, which most of the time we approve of that. But no, they have those skills.

• 33:32Mike Carruthers?

  So what is a bobcat? Because we have one in our neighborhood, maybe more than one, but we see it on our Ring camera all the time, we're walking across the driveway. And I wonder like, what is that? What is a bobcat?

• 33:46Speaker 03

  You know, I don't know very much about bobcats as such. I've seen them. I've seen them hiking in the Sierra Nevada. But they tend to be pretty isolated animals. They are, they don't really pose any kind of threat to humans the way that a mountain lion or something like that might. But they, you know, so many of us, especially here in California, but also in places like Colorado and elsewhere, you know, we live in what we think of as suburbs or cities, but we're not that far away from either actual wildlands or kind

• 34:27Speaker 03

  of mixed strategy uses. So for example, one of the places where we see a lot of not just bobcats, but mountain lions and animals like that are on the edges of large

• 34:45Speaker 03

  Golf courses that are adjacent to mountain systems, whether it's in California or in Colorado, because those golf courses have water and they have grass that attract deer that attract mountain lions.

• 34:59Mike Carruthers?

  Has the domestication of cats at all changed their appearance? Does a cat today look just like a cat did in ancient Egypt?

• 35:11Speaker 03

  The similarities are striking enough that you would have no problem recognizing them. But, beginning in the late 19th century, early 20th century, cat fanciers here in the United States and in Europe began to selectively breed cats so that you would have different varieties of cats. Those differences, whether it's a Siamese or a Maine Coon, are largely only visible in terms of fur and coloration. They're not really noticeable in terms of their skeletal remains.

• 35:50Speaker 03

  And so, the basic form of the animals was not really selected for as much as their appearance was.

• 35:58Mike Carruthers?

  So, I'd like to get your take on this, since you've studied cats. A lot of us who are not big cat people, kinda don't get it, because cats are aloof and seemingly don't really care all that much about us, except that, you know, we feed them. And yet, the appeal of having cats goes back, as you've pointed out, you know, centuries. And, why is that? What's the appeal, unlike, say, a dog, who, you know, is always happy to see you?

• 36:32Speaker 03

  I think that cats fall into this category of what we think of as charismatic species. And this is a term that comes out of wildlife biology for animals, and in some cases, plants, that seem to really attract human attention. And so, these are the animals that show up on your advertisements for World Wildlife Fund, or for your local zoos and things like that. It turns out that they don't put tapeworms up there as their icons. They put up animals that are charismatic. And there's been a lot of research on this by advertisers and others, and we know what the top 20 charismatic species are.

• 37:16Speaker 03

  And of the top 10, I think it's four are different varieties of cats, lions, tigers, cheetahs, leopards, et cetera. And as well as elephants and things like that. And what's really interesting is that when we go back and look at cave art that was made 15,000 to 20,000 years ago and painted on the walls of caves in Europe during the Paleolithic, like at Chauvet Cave, the animals that are depicted there are not just some random depiction of animals that ancient peoples ran into, they are the same charismatic species.

• 37:55Speaker 03

  They are cave lions, they are cave bears, they're mammoths, they're rhinoceri. And it's really interesting to see that kind of continuity between someone who's making cave art in the Upper Paleolithic and a modern designer who's saying, okay, who would be a good animal character for the next Disney cartoon? And they're likely to choose the same charismatic animals.

• 38:27Mike Carruthers?

  You know, I'd never really thought of it that way before, but you're so right that, you know, they don't put like really ugly

• 38:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 38:36Mike Carruthers?

  Really ugly animals up, that it's always the cute ones. And who can resist a kitten? I mean, what's cuter than that?

• 38:43Speaker 03

  Right. And, you know, I've often toyed with the idea, I mean, what would a Disney film based on Tammy the Tapeworm look like?

• 38:50Mike Carruthers?

  I don't know, and I'll never know because I wouldn't go see it, so. Neither would most people, so.

• 38:58Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 38:59Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah.

• 39:00Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 39:01Mike Carruthers?

  But this idea that you were speaking of earlier, that there are people buried with their cats, I don't get that. Because why?

• 39:12Speaker 03

  Because of the affinity between people and their animals. This is something that you should realize that here in the United States, as well as elsewhere in Europe, for example, in the United Kingdom, we have explicit laws stating why animals and humans cannot be buried together. And in part, those laws exist in order to make sure that folks who love their cats and dogs don't get interred with them. So this is a cultural barrier that we've got.

• 39:48Speaker 03

  In fact, one of the reasons that people are attracted to having their cats cremated is so that they can have the cat with them after the animal has died, which they otherwise would not be able to do, given our state laws about cemeteries and burials.

• 40:09Mike Carruthers?

  But if you are buried with your cat, that means you took your live cat and killed it in order to bury it.

• 40:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, and with that, there's an implication generally that there is an afterlife that you are both going into, and you don't want to go make that journey alone.

• 40:29Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, that's weird. I mean, that's hard to get your head around because it's just because it seems so bizarre. But I hadn't, I didn't know there were laws that you couldn't be buried, like if you and your cat were killed in a car accident together, you couldn't bury the cat with the person?

• 40:47Speaker 03

  That's correct, and I know that's true in California. And in fact, one of the interesting things here in Carson is we've got a human cemetery just down the street from our pet cemetery, and it's, you know, that's as close as someone can get to being buried near their cat.

• 41:08Mike Carruthers?

  What's one thing or two things about cats that I probably don't know that would fascinate me or surprise me?

• 41:16Speaker 03

  Well, the first thing is that cats actually are trying often to communicate with us. And this is something that I, you know, I'd been living around cats for a long time, and I only learned this recently, that when a cat, a domesticated cat approaches you and its tail is up, that's a symbol signifying, yeah, I want to interact with you.

• 41:42Speaker 03

  So the tail up is actually a symbol, that's one thing. The second thing I think that's really fascinating and kind of unexpected about cats is just how smart and curious they are. That in and of itself is kind of a fascinating mystery, isn't it? I wouldn't say that about a goldfish, for example. I don't think there's a little, you know, complex mind that's paddling around in that fishbowl. And, you know, this is not something that I'm Jerry Moore just making up. I mean, we see this in different cultures, in different traditional cultures, and we see it throughout the Western tradition.

• 42:25Speaker 03

  I mean, there is a reason why in Alice in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll did not write about the Cheshire Dog.

• 42:33Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, well, I mean, cats are, with a dog, it seems like you get, what you see is what you get, that a dog is very much an open book, whereas cats seem so mysterious. And, you know, I've told this story before on a previous episode, but I used to have a cat and our family moved overseas for a year and gave the cat to the neighbor, but of course, the cat didn't know that, and so it kept going back to our house, which was rented out to people who didn't want it. So eventually, the cat just ran away, and we came back, and I think it was two years later, the cat just showed up, just came back home and went right to where its dish was, like, well, where's dinner?

• 43:14Mike Carruthers?

  And, but he's been gone for three years, and, and, like, where have you, where have you been? And it's very-

• 43:22Speaker 03

  Right. Now, they have remarkable spatial memories. And I think one of the things about that that's important is that it's not just remembering a place, they're also remembering an interaction that that cat had with you and your family in that particular place. And that's really remarkable, isn't it?

• 43:44Mike Carruthers?

  Yeah, well, yeah, it didn't just come home and sit on the steps, it came and went where its bowl used to be and waited for something to eat. So it, it-

• 43:52Speaker 03

  Right.

• 43:53Mike Carruthers?

  It was remembering, or something, it was remembering an experience of time for dinner. Right, right. Well, I appreciate you explaining all this because I think for a lot of us, the appeal of cats as a pet is a bit of a mystery just because they seem so detached and aloof, but I understand it a little better now. I've been talking with Jerry Moore, who is an archaeologist and writer, and he is author of a book called Cat Tales: A History, and there's a link to that book in the show notes. Jerry, thanks. You know your cats. Okay, thanks very much for your interest in this project.

• 44:33Mike Carruthers?

  When you get sick, it's tempting to reach for a home remedy, but do any of them actually work? Well, according to Consumer Reports and other recent medical reviews, some classic remedies really can help ease the symptoms, even if they don't cure the illness. Honey, for example, has been shown to soothe coughs and sore throats, and in some studies, it performs nearly as well as over-the-counter cough medicines. Warm drinks, especially tea with honey, help lubricate the throat, promote saliva production, and thin mucus, which can reduce irritation. And chicken soup really earns its reputation.

• 45:18Mike Carruthers?

  It helps with hydration, it loosens congestion, and may even reduce inflammation, making you feel better faster. Supplements like vitamin C and zinc, mixed evidence there. Vitamin C might modestly shorten colds, and zinc, taken early, may reduce the duration, at least it did in some studies, but the evidence is not uniform. Now, these remedies don't cure a cold, but they can make the experience more comfortable while your immune system does the rest of the work. And that is something you should know. You know, we try to cover a lot of interesting topics on this show, and today, for example, we talked about mattering and cats.

• 45:59Mike Carruthers?

  If you know somebody who's feeling like maybe they don't matter, or you have a cat lover in your life that might enjoy it, I hope you'll share this episode with them. I'm sure they'd appreciate it, and it helps us grow our show. I'm Mike Carruthers. Thanks for listening today to Something You Should Know.

• 46:17Speaker 00

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• 46:47Speaker 05

  Now streaming on Paramount+. I'm Dexter Morgan. I've been killing killers for half my life. It gets to you. You're having a midlife crisis. I'm not ready for that. He's back. I'm older. I'm wiser. And sharper than ever. Things are gonna get messy. But if I can't believe in myself, I can't believe in anything. Dexter Resurrection. New season now streaming on the Paramount+ Premium Plan.