cathy wrote:Anyone catch this new epic from Brian Cox?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p0 ... n-spacemanFirst episode was supposedly human evolution but apart from a few baboons, 3 hominid skulls and some climate instability stuff it was mainly Brian doing gazing in wonder and saying 'ain't brains great'. Plus lots of local folk from far away places gazing into the middle distance grr. Could have been so much better.
Far more interesting in evolutionary terms was cat watch 2014 (Horizon)
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b0 ... n-your-lapDidn't realise for example that felines were the only things that could only ear meat because of a mutation a long time ago. Plus lots of interesting difference between rural semi feral and urban domestic cats. Much more informative.
Nothing coming close to best programme this year - Young Vets. Nor to the utterly addictive Great a British Bake Off (Richard was unfairly robbed

), but at least on topic

I've got much the same thoughts as you on this, Cathy.
Brian Cox is brllliant at popular sciience when he sticks to his own area of expertise, physics. He's just out of his depth when it comes to biology.
Neverthekess, the BBC is world class when it comes to popular science and I suspect that its expertise ultimately goes back to David Attenborough who has been producing and present wildlife programmingg since (IIRC) 1952. He also understands the "business" of broadcasting - he basically established and ran BBC2 in the 1960s (and commissioned Monty Python, BTW).
Liz Bonin did a superb job on the three Horizon cat programmes (last year's Horizon programmes on the same subject were not aywhere as informative and she wasn't involved in them). Bonin is well qualified in biology (master's degree IIRC) and obviously loves cats. She really got into the complex issues of cat behaviour. Not easy as cats really are complex, strange, creatures (I've lived with a few of them).
The only part of the three programmes that appeared to be skimped was the genetic origins of domestic cats. My sister had a pet African Wild Cat and they seem to be remarkably similar in temprement to a domestic cat. However, it isn't entirely clear to me whether the domestic cat is a hybrid or a pure descendent of the wild cat. Moreover domestication seems to have had a big impact on them - much smaller brains, for example. Is that a form of evolution or a result of removal of evolutionary pressures?
Does anyone have some online references where I can find out more about the origins of the domestic cat?
Oh, yer, the other puzzle not addressed is precisely what a domestic cat thinks its "owner" is? Another giant cat? Its mother? A litter mate?