Starship Asterisk*

http://qz.com/167445/activists-in-china-just-saved-2800-cats-from-ending-up-on-the-dinner-table/ wrote:
<<This week, about 30 activists in Wuhan, China blocked the path of a truck carrying over 2,800 cats destined for the south where feline cuisine is not uncommon. The cats were likely to be sold as meat at restaurants. Wuhan’s Animal Protection Association Center said the cats would be rescued.>>

http://blogs.independent.co.uk/2014/01/14/the-secret-history-of-cats/ wrote:
<<Until recently, everyone agreed that domestic cats first appeared in ancient Egypt, about five thousand years ago. [However,] recent excavation of a 5,000 year-old village in Shaanxi has unearthed the bones of cats that seem to have been preying on rodents that were living in the village and raiding the villagers’ crops and food stores. The scientists were able to rely on a quirk of biochemistry that distinguished animals that had been eating mainly wild plants from those that had been getting their nutrition from [millet].>> - John Bradshaw: author of “Cat Sense: the feline enigma revealed”