Credit Fraud
Great discoveries in virology include Doctor Jonas Salk, who created the first effective vaccine for polio; Doctors Drew Weissman and Katalin Karikó’s pioneering work on messenger RNA that helped find a quick vaccine for COVID-19; and Pepper the cat, who discovered the first-ever jeilongvirus to be found in the United States.
Of course, Pepper’s human, Dr. John Lednicky and his team took credit for the genius cat’s work.
In May, Pepper returned home with a dead mouse and dropped it before his owner’s feet.
“Call me crazy doc, but I think this dead thing might be carrying a paramyxovirus” Pepper allegedly said to Lednicky.
While you or I might first think about how to dispose of the rodent, Lednicky, a professor at the University of Florida and an expert in viruses took Pepper’s advice and brought the feline’s donation for science to his department’s laboratory to study.
But Lednicky didn’t pay attention to the paramyxovirus part. He suspected that the mouse might carry mule deerpox, a highly contagious virus
What the Lednicky team discovered wasn’t deerpox but a jeilongvirus classified within the Paramyxoviridae family by phylogeny, found in Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America, but not the U.S.
Pepper was right.
To top it off, this jeilongvirus was genetically much different from other jeilongviruses according to Lednicky.
“It grows equally well in rodent, human, and nonhuman primate (monkey) cells, making it a great candidate for a spillover event,” Lednicky told UFHealth.
Holy microscope Batman! Pepper may have saved humanity.
Emily DeRuyter, a doctoral candidate said there is no need to panic. Most humans have little direct contact with jeilongviruses’ main host, wild rats and mice she was cited as saying in the UFHealth story.
What?!
Cleary DeRuyter has never visited New York City, a metropolis of 8 million where rats, some as big as dogs, and commuters coexist in the cozy confines of the Big Apple’s subterranean cesspool that is their subway system.
Some NYC rats even earn extra cash performing for the people as part of the city’s Music Under New York initiative. I recommend stopping off at the 23rd Street station on the 4 and 6 lines to hear good harmonica playing from the city-renowned Pizza Rat.
Instead of naming the jeilongvirus after Pepper, the squad called it Gainesville rodent jeilong virus 1, further shunning the contributions of the brilliant feline.
If that wasn’t enough, the researchers took a group photo without Pepper as if it was a Kremlin-retouched photo from Stalin’s time.
Fortunately, Pepper didn’t develop any symptoms from exposure to Gainesville Pepper rodent jeilong virus 1.
I was reading this story when I had the feeling I wasn’t alone.
Sure enough, perched on the back of the sofa was our cat Chester who was reading over my shoulder.
“Are you freaking kidding me,” he snarled. “Another example of humans taking credit for what we cats reveal.”
“Like what,” I asked.
“Me for starters!”
“I’m the one who told those string theory quacks, Robert Brandenberger and Cumrun Vafa their position was wrong,” Chester extolled. “Did they listen? Yes! Did they give me credit? No!”
“I should have sued them for intellectual property infringement but who wants to spend all that time in court when I’d rather nap,” Chester bemoaned.
“Really? You didn’t sue because you’d rather sleep,” I said bewilderedly.
“That and I didn’t have a few hundred thousand dollars to pay the lawyers at Fish & Richardson P.C.,” Chester said.
“Any other examples, Chester?”
“Yeah. That pseudo-brainiac Einstein,” Chester snarled.
“Albert Einstein,” I wanted to confirm.
“Him,” Chester countered.
“Do tell,” I cajoled our tempestuous tabby to continue.
“His cat Tiger knocked some sense into him,” Chester lectured. “You think that E = mc2 witchcraft was all Al’s doing? No way.
“Tiger was getting sick and tired of waiting all the time for his feedings while Boy Wonder was trying to figure out special relativity. So, the cat took action.
“One day while ‘the genius’ was stuck on a thought experiment with electrodynamics, Tiger had enough and tripped Einstein. The German fell on his head and eureka! The theory of relativity was born.”
“Albert got his Nobel and Tiger didn’t have to wait anymore for late meals. Everybody won.
“Only a cat could make that happen,” Chester said proudly.
“You have another example,” I asked with trepidation.
“Yes. Sir Jimmy Neutron.”
“You mean Sir Isaac Newton?”
“Sure, whatever you say his name is,” an annoyed Chester responded. “Anyway, the star of his greatest invention was really from his cat Spithead. I love that name.”
“You’re telling me Spithead came up with the three laws of motion?”
“No.”
“Calculus?”
“Meer child’s play. No.”
“The law of universal gravitation?”
“Sounds like you’re not really trying.”
“The reflective telescope?”
“Are you brain dead?”
“The discovery of the color spectrum?”
“NO! Why would a cat waste their time on that? You know we don’t see as many colors as humans. Give up?”
“I can’t wait for this. Sure, I give up.”
“Drum roll please,” Chester said with great anticipation. “The cat flap!”
“The what,” I said with a blank face.
“The cat flap, stupid,” Chester shouted back. “You know, the flap on a door that allows us cats to come and go as we please. I’m surprised you don’t have one for me you inconsiderate dolt.”
“You wouldn’t know how to use it, Einstein. See what I did there?
“Spithead literally drew it out for Newton,” Chester squealed. “He took some chalk and outlined what the cat flap should look like on the door. Then he drew a self-portrait of himself next to the image of the cat flap to make sure one of humanity’s greatest minds wasn’t clueless enough to miss the connection.
“It was like an apple fell on his head and jarred some sense into Newton,” Chester chuckled.
“Newton didn’t invent the cat flap or whatever it’s called. That’s a myth. Look it up,” I said.
We went online to fact-check Chester’s version of history. The cat flap story was described on many sites as folklore or unsubstantiated. There are even questions about if Newton even had a cat. But there were plenty of bloggers who wrote that it was fact and that’s all Chester needed.
“See, I told you so,” Chester crowed. “These morons either give Newton credit for coming up with the idea or deny it happened. You humans never give credit to us cats. Dear Spithead gets no recognition.
“To make things worse, dirty, smelly dogs started to use our invention. All they did before the cat flap was to run into the door head first thinking that it would open. What a sorry excuse for a species.”
“My brain hurts,” I confessed. This was akin to Bugs Bunny teaching his nephew Clyde about early American history. That didn’t go well for Clyde’s grades and this conversation wasn’t going well for me either.
“I’ll give you one more example,” Chester chirped.
“Please don’t,” I begged.
“Edwin ‘Space Cadet’ Hubble,” Chester proudly announced.
“Please stop.”
“I love your enthusiasm for cat accomplishments,” Chester sneered.
“Anyway, this Hubble guy is credited with discovering that there were other galaxies besides the Milky Way and something called redshifting which you could determine the distance of stuff in outer space.”
“And of course he had a cat who was really the brains behind all of this,” I deadpanned.
“Now you’re catching on,” Chester said.
“I’d like to catch the football game that’s on right now.”
“His cat, Nicholas Copernicus…”
“That’s catchy,” I butted in.
“What’s catchy?”
“His name.”
“What about it?”
“Copernicus was a famous astronomer who lived a few hundred years ago.”
“And?”
“Hubble is also an astronomer, get it?”
Silence.
“Where was I,” Chester said impassively. “Oh yeah, Nicholas Copernicus.”
“This prescient Persian didn’t have to trip or draw a picture for his owner to get the point. Instead, he worked side-by-side with Hubble.”
“You’re serious?”
“You doubt me,” Chester scolded.
“Well, Hubble’s wife Grace wrote about the two of them.”
“When E worked in the study at his big desk, Nicolas solemnly sprawled over as many pages as he could cover. ‘He is helping me,” Hubble told Grace as chronicled on The Huntington website.
“You really believe Copernicus is responsible for discovering other galaxies and the cosmological redshift,” I asked with great hesitation.
“Look it up yourself if you don’t believe me,” my overconfident cat replied.
So, I looked it up.
“Hey, Chester. This story on Hubble says he didn’t get Copernicus until the year 1946. But those discoveries happened in the 1920s. What say you, my furry friend?”
“Clearly a typo,” Chester smoothly replied. ” This is just another example of the man putting down a cat to claim all the glory.
“I’ll give kudos to Hubble for one thing,” Chester added.
“What’s that?”
“A cat flap.
“That story you looked at with the typo, it quotes Hubble about what Copernicus needed.”
“It must have a cat-door,” Hubble said. “All cats should have [one], it is necessary for their self-respect.”
“Now, when are you going to get me a cat flap, big guy,” Chester said in a demanding tone.
“I’m not putting a hole in my door so you can come and go as you please,” I said. “Besides, I don’t need critters walking in unannounced. Also, I don’t see you paying the heating bills. We do live in Connecticut you know.”
“If not the door, then how about a hole in your head,” Chester shot back.
“Relax cat,” I said in my most calming voice. The last thing I wanted was a wild cat roaming our home. I needed to think of a way to bring Chester’s angst down. Fortunately, he came up with the solution himself.
“Now that I’ve provided you with an exceptional history lesson on how great us cats are, I think I deserve an extra bowl of kibble,” Chester said as he slowly calmed down.
“Let me give you credit for a wonderful idea Chester,” I said, feeling the tension in the room dissipate.
“Credit accepted,” an appreciative Chester replied. “Finally, a cat gets his rightful acclaim.
“Waiter, my kibble if you please.”
The Chester Chronicles 