Humans and Rats Think Alike After Making Mistakes

When it comes to learning from mistakes, humans and rats think alike, research suggests.

In a study that tracked how humans and their rodent cousins adapted to errors during a time estimation task, the two species showed similar brain activity in the medial frontal cortex (MFC), which sends signals that synchronize neurons in the part of the brain that controls movement.

The findings suggest rats could serve as models for studying human adaptive control, the process of modifying choices based on experience. This knowledge could be useful in treating psychiatric diseases, such as obsessive compulsive disorder, depression and schizophrenia, the researchers say

"With this rat model of adaptive control, we are now able to examine if novel drugs or other treatment procedures boost the integrity of this system," study researcher James Cavanagh, now a psychology professor at the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque, said in a statement.

Lesions to the MFC in humans and other animals are known to cause impaired performance in tasks that require learning from mistakes, such as a false start in a race. But the mechanism for how MFC achieved this control wasn't known.

Cavanagh and his colleagues at Brown and Yale Universities measured the brainwaves of rats and humans as both performed a task that involved estimating time in response to a cue.

The researchers saw an increase in low-frequency brainwaves in the MFC of rats and humans after they made errors during the task. The brain activity in this area was synchronized with activity in the motor cortex, the part of the brain that controls muscle movement.

When the scientists used drugs to inactivate the MFC in the rats, the animals were worse at learning from their mistakes on the task, and their MFC brainwaves were less in sync with the motor cortex.

The results, detailed today (Oct. 20) in the journal Nature Neuroscience, "describe a new mechanism for behavioral adaptation through low-frequency oscillations," the authors write. The findings suggest rodents could be a good model for testing new drugs or brain stimulation treatments for diseases involving problems with adaptive control, they 

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Government Shutdown Could Cost Defense Department Billions

As the United States entered its 14th day of the federal government shutdown, experts had more bad news about the long-term impacts of a lengthy budget impasse: It could cost the Department of Defense billions of dollars.

It typically costs between $4 billion and $8 billion to shutter and reopen the federal government, but Todd Harrison, an analyst at the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments, an independent, nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C., said the shutdown could cost the Department of Defense billions of dollars down the line, reported DefenseNews.com. 

For one, agencies will have to deal with all the work that has accumulated since the shutdown began on Oct. 1. The final price tag, however, will also depend on how the government deals with issues such as back pay for federal employees.

While special legislation has helped to insulate many military and Pentagon employees, the inefficiencies created by the government shutdown could have lasting consequences. "It's not that it's immediate," Harrison told DefenseNews.com. "It won't cost you billions of dollars in the first year. It's billions of dollars over the life of these programs."

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Bowflex Boost: Fitness Tracker Review

he maker of Bowflex fitness equipment, Nautilus, recently launched an activity tracker called Bowflex Boost. At $49.95, it's one of the least expensive activity trackers on the market (For comparison, the Jawbone Up will cost you $129.99, and the Fitbit Flex goes for $99.95).
But how well does the Boost perform compared to other, more pricey trackers? I tried it out for a few days to see.
The Boost excels in comfort. Made from silicone material, the wristband is flexible, and is designed to coil around the wrist before it is snapped into place with a plastic clasp.
My favorite thing about the Boost has to be the 14 size settings, which allow you to adjust the band so that it fits snuggly around your wrist. Although a simple feature, you'd be surprised at how much less fun afitness trackeris to wear if it doesn't fit right. I have small wrists, and the Boost fit me much better than some other wristband fitness trackers, such as the Nike FuelBand, which can be only minimally adjusted, andJawbone Up, which cannot be adjusted at all.
The Boost has just one button on the top of the device, which you press to see your progress — a red, yellow or green light shines to indicates how far you are toward reaching your activity goal for the day — to put the device in sleep mode, or to wirelessly sync the device with your phone.
I found this button somewhat hard to operate. The button needs to be held for three seconds to put into sleep mode, and five seconds to sync. It sometimes took me several tries to get the device into sleep mode, or to sync, even though I was pushing the button down quit firmly. Instead of syncing, the light on the device would simply turn off, and I would have to start over.
User-Friendliness:  ★★★☆☆
The device is simple enough to use. The red, yellow, green lighting system gives you a quick snapshot of your daily activity progress. However, there is no screen on the wristband, so users must look at the app to know exactly how many steps they've taken or calories burned. For people interested in knowing exactly how they're doing "right now," an activity tracker with a screen might be a better fit. [Top Fitness Gadgets for 2013]
To see your data, you have to download the Boost app, which is currently available only for the iPhone. When you launch the app for the first time, a graphic explains how to use the device, and the meaning of Boost's red/yellow/green lights. (Red means you've reached 0-50 percent of your goal, yellow 51-99 percent and green 100 percent).
Boost tracks the steps you've taken, the calories you've burned and the distance walked. It also tracks your sleep time, and how long it takes you to fall asleep. With the app launched, you simply swipe the screen to switch between viewing your activity and sleep.
Over time, the Boost tracks your weekly, monthly and yearly activity, and can display it in a graph. However, it doesn't store the daily data -- after a day has passed, there's no way for you to view how many steps you took on that day, how many calories you burned, and your distance traveled.

The default settings for Boost's activity goals are 10,000 steps, 500 calories and three miles, although you can adjust these goals if you so choose.
However, the device does not tell you how much activity you need to "be healthy," or how much sleep you need, and does not provide tips to boost your activity or help you get more shuteye. In other words, there's very little "hand-holding" with the Boost.
The device tracks your activity, but it's up to you to figure out how to improve it. (For comparison, the Withings Pulse tells users that the World Health Organization recommends 150 minutes of activity per week, and that most adults need between seven and nine hours of sleep.)
The Boost's light does not shine green until you've reached all three of your goals, for steps, calories and miles. So if you've walked 15,000 steps, but burned only 300 calories, the light remains yellow. This method may help users focus on all three metrics, rather than just one.
A small criticism is that the activity graphs on the app — which show your daily, weekly, monthly or yearly activity — have a Y axis labeled simply as "%." Which begs the question, percent of what?

        

The Boost tracks your activity, but I can't say it was very inspiring. It does not prompt you to get moving when you have a sedentary day, nor praise you when you meet your goal.

The app also does not allow you to compare your daily activity with others, however, you can share your activity to Facebook and Twitter. But if you're looking for a no-frills device, and you simply need to see your activity numbers for a little motivation, the Boost might be for you.

Conclusion: 10 out of 20 stars

The pros of the Boost include its affordable price, adjustable strap and ability to view a month's or year's worth of data on a single graph.

The cons of the Boost are a lack of a screen on the wristband, no tips for how to improve physical activity or sleep, and no way to look up exactly how many steps you took after a day has passed.

        

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British students arrive in Zambia to help build school

St Mary’s Calne, a leading British independent boarding and day school for girls based in Wiltshire, has sent fifteen A Level and GCSE pupils and two members of staff to Zambia to help build a school in Chama, one of the remotest districts based in the Eastern Province of Zambia.

The project is focused on helping the Anglican Street Children’s Programme in Zambia and has been organised in conjunction with The Livingstone Arts, Cultural & Sporting Events Development Organisation (LACSEDO) and The David Livingstone Bicentenary and Livingstone 2013 Initiative, to mark the bicentenary of the birth of Dr David Livingstone.

In a statement a statement to ACNS and other media, Chairperson of The David Livingstone Bicentenary & Livingstone 2013 Initiative, Belinda Hodge said, "St Mary’s Calne sees this as the start of a long-term relationship with the new school and are hugely excited to be given such an amazing opportunity to make a difference to the everyday lives of vulnerable children in this region of Zambia."

The Director of the Anglican Street Children’s Programme in Zambia, Fr Katete Jones, said he was happy with the development; that "it would go a long way in helping the vulnerable young girls in the region".

He said: "In Chama, girls are missing out on education as a result of the poverty and bad traditional practices of early marriages. This opportunity of a better education will be a dream come true for them."

"It must be pointed out that Chama is one of the remotest areas in Zambia and not many charitable organisations would want to render help as the distances from the main (tarred) roads are enormous," he said.

St Mary’s pupils have raised over £1,000 towards building materials, over and above paying for their trip themselves. They have been fundraising all year by hosting a variety of activities in the school’s calendar, including selling Krispy Kreme Doughnuts during school mid-morning breaks and holding non-school uniform days when pupils can pay to wear their own clothes rather than the required school uniform.

As well as making a start on the structure of the new school, the St Mary’s girls and staff will be meeting children and their families, leaders of the local community, playing sport with the children, learning about the different culture and getting a first-hand feel of what it is like to live in Zambia.

The suggested name for the new school is St Mary’s Anglican Girls Secondary School, creating a very important link between the two schools.

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Why Australia's Wildfires Are So Bad

A dry, warm winter set the stage for dozens of wildfires currently threatening populated areas in New South Wales, Australia.

The fires have destroyed hundreds of homes and sent smoke and ash into the air over Sydney. The region, which is now entering summer, also experienced hundreds of fires this January during a catastrophic heat wave. 

The past three months have been among the driest 10 percent on record in New South Wales (NSW), said Todd Lane, a meteorologist at the University of Melbourne. The region has received about 4 inches (100 millimeters) less rain than normal. At the same time, temperatures during the winter months averaged 5 degrees Fahrenheit (3 degrees Celsius) hotter than normal across much of NSW.

"These prolonged warm and dry conditions lead to dry fuels, which is a key ingredient for severe fires," Lane told LiveScience.

Difficult weather

There are four big fires and 53 smaller ones burning in NSW. Thousands of homes in the Blue Mountains outside Sydney are close to natural areas and are at risk from the flames.

Firefighters are expecting difficult conditions today (Oct. 23, Australian time). A weak cold front is expected to move through, which should alleviate the heat in the long term, but which will likely stoke the flames before it starts helping. The wind will likely increase in front of the front, Lane said, and gusts can send flames spreading in surprising directions. In previous fires, he said, the hours before a "cool change" have been the deadliest.

Complicating the response is the mountainous terrain where the fires are burning. Mountain wind is often "stronger, gustier and less predictable," Lane said. Eucalyptus forests may also be feeding the flames.

The flames are also creating their own weather, as they are expected tofuel huge pyrocumulus clouds over the area, which can also create winds that fuel the fire further.

A changing climate

Australia is no stranger to major fires. In 1983, the Ash Wednesday fires killed 75 people. In 2009, a heat wave fueled the Black Saturday fires, which raged across the province of Victoria. One hundred and seventy-three people died, and thousands of homes were destroyed.

Such fires are too infrequent to judge whether they're coming harder and faster as the climate warms, Lane said. But researchers do expect Australia to see more fires thanks to climate change. Canada, Russia, the United States and the Mediterranean will likely see more fires as well. [Gallery: California Wildfires]

"Fuels are drier when temperatures go up," said Peter Fulé, a fire ecologist at Northern Arizona University. "You have basically more evaporation, so fuels dry out more. You also have longer fire seasons."

Over time, though, the effect of climate change on forest fires becomes more complex, Fulé told LiveScience. In some regions, the climate will become more arid, resulting in less vegetation in forests, with the end result being less fuel. Changing temperatures might also influence what vegetation returns after a fire — some forests may never come back.

Adding to the complexity is the fact that fires are a natural part of many forest ecosystems. It's not enough to say fire is good or bad in a particular region, Fulé said.

"In some places, you want to have fires rarely, but very intensively. And in other places, it fits better in those communities to have frequent, low intensity fires," he said. "Trying to balance that all out, trying to relate it to what human society wants and is willing to pay for, and how to deal with houses in the middle of that is an important issue. And then, the way that climate change affects it is also important."

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Why Obama's spin on Healthcare.gov may only make things worse

An IT problem has never escalated faster than the president's Rose Garden speech Monday addressing the problems with Healthcare.gov. He could no longer outsource responding to user complaints. At first, the White House had said the headaches signing people up for health care coverage were just technical glitches, but now the sheer number of those glitches defies that explanation. Reporting about deeper systemic problems suggest that fixes will not come quickly. As my colleague Matthew Yglesias explains, adding more bodies to the problem adds more complexity, which may exacerbate the problem. It's hard to untangle Christmas lights by committee.

Barack Obama doesn't like to play the action-hero president where the application of his overwhelming will is supposed to directly correlate with a snappy solution. There are too many constraints on the presidency--Congress, a fickle public, world leaders, a $17 trillion economy, and the vagaries of time and space. But with the botched Obamacare rollout, the president was applying all the rhetorical torque he could muster. "Nobody's madder than me about the fact that the website isn't working as well as it should," Obama said on Monday, "which means it's going to get fixed."

Rhetoric and will isn't going to solve this problem. That helped the president triumph over the government shutdown and debt limit crisis, when through determination and superior political positioning he out maneuvered his Republican opponents. Now he has a different kind of challenge--an operational challenge--where his talent for politics and persuasion are less useful and may even make matters worse. Putting a good spin on things only sets expectations that can then be dashed by reality.

It's a challenge of the president's own making. Unlike his battle with Republicans over the serial budget crises or the economic mess or smoldering wars he inherited from the Bush administration, the president is not reacting to uncontrollable events. He can't blame BP or Halliburton. The Affordable Care Act is his baby. Republicans made the rollout harder, but more than any other domestic challenge, his administration should have been able to anticipate the problems they're now scrambling to fix.

In the Rose Garden on Monday morning, the president had a tough balancing act. On the one hand, he wanted to show that he was personally peeved, but he also had to simultaneously argue that the problems that made him so angry weren't threatening the underlying health of the product. That's a proposition that has yet to be tested. There are substantive ways in which the rollout can damage the fundamental enterprise. If the problems are as systemic as some reporting suggests, then they will not be fixed easily or anytime soon. The premise of the website was that its rollout would initiate a wave of social media success stories that would reach those younger applicants who are so vital to Obamacare's success. Younger, healthy people must sign up to keep the insurance pools from being dominated by older sicker Americans, an outcome that would make prices soar. But those great sign up stories are not filtering through social media to this hard-to-reach group. Instead, they're hearing that the program is a mess. If enough young people don't sign up, then the death-spiral scenario kicks in.

The president's speech was just the latest attempt to put the problems with Healthcare.gov into perspective--a job that is not going well. Before the site was launched, the president said it would make signing up for health care as easy asmaking a plane reservation. When, after a few rocky days that turned out to be too rosy, the administration dropped the airline analogy. Now the experience more closely approximates the saga of having your flight delayed. First, the airline tells you it will be a half hour, then it stretches it to an hour, then two, then you're offered a voucher for a drink. After four hours, it dawns on you that the plane is never taking off. They continue to assure you it will--just before they cancel your flight.

The stories keep shifting. Administration officials said the site had been tested as thoroughly as the IRS computer systems that handle electronic tax returns. Now Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admits the system wasn't tested enough. In the first several days, administration officials spoke of "glitches," and Secretary Sebelius asked that people give the government the same amount of slack Apple gets when it launches a new product. But the administration dropped that analogy because, unlike Apple's quick admission that Apple Maps was a mess, the government can't just let users install Google Maps (and there have been no quick firings for the mess, as there were at Apple). The president and his team then said the website snafus were the result of huge traffic, but that explanation doesn't explain the considerable technical problems now being reported. Reports of the extraordinary number of people who have accessed the site are themselves full of fuzzy claims that seek to oversell the success.

There's a dangerous spiral that can take hold in these situations, as spin intended to distract from the current mess becomes its own problem. That is especially true when the facts demonstrate that the story the administration was selling is too optimistic: Either the White House knew how bad things were and wasn't playing it straight or it didn't know how bad things were and is just inept. Which one the public chooses--or whether they forgive the launch pad mishaps when everything is repaired--depends on the administration's operational, rather than its political, skill. The customer support ticket has reached the highest level; now the country must wait.

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58 percent support marijuana legalization, poll says

The times, they are a-changin.

With marijuana now legal in two states (and perhaps more to follow), a clear majority of Americans - 58 percent - say marijuana should be legalized, according to new poll from Gallup.

The results mark the first time since Gallup began polling on the issue in 1969 that a majority have voiced support for marijuana legalization.

In 1969, only 12 percent supported legalization. By 2000 that number had jumped to 31 percent. And while support has generally increased steadily over time, it seems to have jumped dramatically since 2012, when only 48 percent of respondents supported legalization.

In this latest poll, 67 percent of young adults between 18 and 29 years of age support legalization - the highest of any age group - and majorities of every age group except those over 65 also support legalization.

But ask grandma, and she might surprise you - even 45 percent of seniors think marijuana should be legal.

• Washington state reveals proposed regulation for recreational pot
• Chris Christie pressed to approve medical marijuana law

And file this under "response bias": While a clear majority supports legalizing pot, only 38 percent of respondents will admit to having used the drug.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, there is a stark political divide - 65 percent of Democrats and 62 percent of independents support legalizing marijuana, but only 35 percent of Republicans agree.

"Success at the ballot box in the past year inColorado and Washington may have increased Americans' tolerance for marijuana legalization," notes Gallup's Art Swift. "The increasing prevalence of medical marijuana as a socially acceptable way to alleviate symptoms of diseases such as arthritis, and as a way to mitigate side effects of chemotherapy, may have also contributed to Americans' growing support."

"The legal momentum shows no sign of abating," he adds. "Last week, California's second-highest elected official, Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, said that pot should be legal in the Golden State, and advocates of legalization are poised to introduce a statewide referendum in 2014 to legalize the drug."

Gallup's poll surveyed 1,028 adults between October 3 and 6, and it carries a margin of error of plus or minus 4 percent.

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Kim Kardashian's $1.25 Million Engagement Ring? Kanye Breaks The Bank For Love

Kimye took an important step towards legal recognition on Monday night, when Kanye West and Kim Kardashian got engaged in San Francisco.

As you'd probably imagine, 'Ye proposed to KK in the most understated way possible, renting out an MLB stadium, hiring a 50-piece orchestra and plastering his proposal on a scoreboard. Oh, and then there was the 15-carat engagement ring he slipped on her finger. Only the best for his bride-to-be, after all

.

And while we'd like to join the chorus of friends and family wishing the couple all the best, we also couldn't help but wonder: how could us mere mortals could pull off an engagement of this magnitude?

Simple answer? We'd need pretty deep pockets. After crunching the numbers, here's a dollar-by-dollar breakdown of KimYe's engagement. Turns out whoever said love don't cost a thing clearly didn't know what they were talking about.

Check Out 8 Wedding Gifts We Picked For Kim And Kanye!

$175: That's how much it costs to get a message on the scoreboard in San Fran's AT&T Park. That buys you four customizable lines of 20 characters — including spaces and punctuation — and messages "cannot be used for commercial purposes." Though, given Kim Kardashian was involved, we suspect they're going to ignore that last part.

$50,000 - $80,000: The going rate to rent a symphony orchestra for a private event. Of course, if you're looking to cut a few corners, the ever-reliable WikiAnswers suggests looking to Western Europe, since, "after the collapse of Communism ... local governments could not afford to finance orchestra." That means you could have a bunch of musicians from the Czech Republic play your engagement for the low, low price of around $5,000.

$200,000: How much Kanye had to plunk down to rent AT&T Park for the night. That includes a 50 percent deposit paid in advance, so you know this wasn't just some spur-of-the-moment decision. For an additional $5,000, he and Kim could have taken batting practice, too, which would have been awesome.

$1,250,000: The price tag attached to the 15-carat engagement ring West bought for his bride-to-be ... minimum. "That's a low-end estimate," Joseph Roth, owner of celeb-preferred Shyne Jewelers said. "Given the clarity of the stone and the quality of the cut, I'm pretty sure it's much more than that." The actual designer of the ring, Lorraine Schwartz, did not respond to MTV News' request for comment.

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TOP INTERNET CATS

We here at Animal Planet collected a group of the foremost cat experts in our headquarters to narrow down the seemingly endless list of internet cats to our very favorites. We sorted through hundreds of Internet cats and memes to find the very best. We laughed a lot. We cringed a lot. We might have even started to purr. Then we sat down and voted for the cats most-deserving of Internet fame.

After a heated debate we have come up with our Top 10 Internet Cats of All Time. It was tough work, but someone had to do it. Did your favorites make the list?

______________________________________________________________________________

10) I Should Buy a Boat Cat

An example of the I Should Buy a Boat Cat meme.

“I Should Buy a Boat Cat” or “Fancy Cat” had his brush with fame far before he ended up as an Internet meme. Singer/Songwriter Bjork released the music video for “Triumph of the Heart” in January 2005 featuring a cat drinking coffee and reading a newspaper while dressed in a blue shirt. Seven years later, Redditor DrTango submitted a post entitled “I’ll just leave this here” to the public featuring a screen capture of the cat with the caption “I should buy a boat”. Soon after, the post acquired more than 12,000 up-votes and hundreds of submissions on Tumblr. So why is he on this list? Can you not see how cute that cat looks in a suit? We couldn't resist adding him to the list on that factor alone.

See More Boat Cat Photos >>

9) Long Cat

An example of the Long Cat meme.

Our friend Long Cat comes to us all the way from Japan! The original photo of Long Cat, whose name is Shiroi (white in Japanese) appeared on the internet some time between 2004 and 2005. Since then, Longcat has become a wildly popular Photoshop meme with participants not only placing the cat into interesting places, but also by surroundings that show off her great length. She has even become a cartoon and sometimes appears with a black version of long cat. She appears on this list since she is one of the earliest examples of a successful cat meme. Plus, the longer the cat, the more kitty there is to love and hug, right? We're going to go with a resounding "yes!" on that one.

See More Long Cat Photos >>

8) Business Cat

An example of the Business Cat meme.

Business Cat features one image of a cat in a suit dolling out humorous business advice from a feline perspective. In early 2011, Something Awful forum user Apple Jax posted a photo of her boyfriend’s cat dressed up in a neck tie. A few days later, the photo made its way to Reddit under the caption “Business Cat” and the hyper-engaged community began submitting captions. Our favorites include “Get those reports to me. Right meow!” and “New office equipment has arrived. If anyone needs me, I’ll be in one of these boxes.” Plus, it's a cat. In a tie. Who can resist that adorable, professional cuteness?

We certainly couldn't.

See More Business Cat Photos >>

7) LOL Cats

This is an example of an LOL Cat.

Dating back to 2005, LOL Cats have earned its place in kitty history as perhaps the longest standing cat meme in Internet history. The silly cat images with superimposed “lolspeak” gained popularity on the popular message board 4chan and the website I Can Has Cheezburger. Some believe that the precursor to LOL Cats dates back to the 19th century; inspired by Harry Whittier Frees, a photographer who produced nonsensical cat photography with humorous text overlaid on each print.

Whatever the origin, the clever text paired with these images never fails to make us laugh. Plus, who hasn't ever imagined what a cat might say if it could talk? Oh. Just us?

See More LOL Cat Photos >>

6) Nyan Cat

This is Nyan Cat.

Nyan Cat is an 8-bit animation of a cat with the body of a cherry pop tart flying through outer space. The Pop Tart Cat animation was posted online by Chris Torres, also known as@prguitarman in April 2011. The original drawing was based on his own Russian Blue cat, Marty, after receiving two separate suggestions for a cat and a pop tart during a Red Cross charity drawing event. A few days later, YouTuber saraj00n posted a video titled Nyan Cat using Torres’ art and Nyanyan- yanyanyanyanya by Japanese artist Daniwell-P looping in the background. The video was an instant hit, gaining more than one million views in its first two weeks. Sadly, Marty succumbed to Feline Infectious Peritonitis in 2012.

See More Nyan Cat Photos >>

5) If I Fits, I Sits

This is an example of the If I Fits, I Sits meme.

A clever play on the USPS slogan “If It Fits It Ships,” If I Fits, I Sits features cats sitting in unconventional household items. And a lot of boxes. This meme originated in March of 2012 and quickly rose up the ranks of Reddit where a series of “If I Fits” photos garnered more than 17,000 upvotes. Since cats love sitting in boxes, or really anything, even if they seem too tiny for the cat, this meme is particularly easy to re-create, meaning even you could take part in the meme.

We think this rose in the ranks due to the many cat-owners at Animal Planet who always send around photos of their cats in boxes. Just a hunch.

See More If I Fits, I Sits Cat Photos >>

4) Chemistry Cat

An example of the Chemistry Cat meme.

Chemistry cat (AKA Science Cat) is an advice animal image series which consists mostly of scientific puns and a photo of a cat wearing a bow-tie and glasses. While the precise origin is a mystery, one theory suggests that Chemistry Cat is a stock photo of Russian origin.

We like this meme because it's smart. It takes a real Chemistry nerd to come up with the jokes and we give props to those who can recall all the chemicals in the Periodic Table of Elements. High School chemistry was a long time ago for some of us.

And it stars a cat wearing glasses. We want to know how they got those to stay on the cat. You know. For research.

See More Chemistry Cat Photos >>

3) Lil Bub

This is Lil Bub.

Lil Bub is truly a jack-of-all-trades. In her short life she has already written a book, starred in a movie and currently hosts the talk show Lil Bub’s Big Show on YouTube. Lil Bub is a “perma-kitten,” which means she will stay kitten sized and maintain kitten-like features her entire life. Lil Bub also has an extreme case of feline dwarfism. Despite Lil Bub’s genetic deformities she is considered by some to be the cutest cat on the Internet. In addition to being a superstar and an author, Lil Bub is an advocate for homeless and special needs pets. To date, she has raised more than $60,000 for various charities through her online store and celebrity appearances. It's impossible not to love this little cutie with a big heart.

See More Lil Bub Photos >>

2) Grumpy Cat

This is Grumpy Cat.

Known for her grumpy facial expression,Grumpy Cat is the star of her own meme series featuring an overly negative and sometimes evil outlook on life. Over the past two years,Grumpy Cat has taken the nation by storm and become arguably the Internet’s most famous cat. She has made appearance on the Today Show, Good Morning America and The Soup.

In addition to her nationwide media tour, Grumpy Cat was named MSNBC’s most influential cat of 2012 and currently has a book on NPR’s bestseller list. Her permanently grumpy-looking face is due to feline dwarfism, a genetic disorder that results in lack of normal bone growth and abnormal bone deformities.

See More Grumpy Cat Photos >>

1) Henri, Le Chat Noir

This is Henri le Chat Noir.

Henri, Le Chat Noir is a YouTube series based on the existential musings of a moody French-speaking cat. The first short film Henri was a film project by William Braden who was studying at the Seattle Film Institute. Braden was inspired by the American perception on French films viewing them as "very pretentious and self-involved. Braden thought to himself “what could be more self-absorbed and pampered than a house cat?” and thus, Henri was born.

Henri gained much attention when he was declared the winner of the first Internet Cat Video Film Festival. We love the styling and Braden's uncanny ability to capture the perceived sometimes-snooty attitude that cats exhibit.

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Take this, conservatives: Criticism only makes Obamacare stronger!

Let’s stipulate that the conservatives crying crocodile tears for uninsured Americans who’ve been badly inconvenienced by broken Obamacare websites are engaged in a world-historical performance of organized concern trolling. If you’re a reporter or a news junkie or a constituent, you should be absolutely clear that these people don’t want Healthcare.gov to work and are making wild, unsupportable claims to discourage people from becoming insured.

Let’s also stipulate that anyone using Healthcare.gov as a synecdoche for inherent vulnerabilities in the broader liberal project is being deceitful or stupid. If the website doesn’t get fixed, it will mean big problems for Obamacare. It would be a tragedy, and an unforced error of massive proportions. But nobody disputes the idea that a site like Healthcare.gov is a workable idea in principle, and Healthcare.gov’s failures don’t detract from the overwhelming successes of the New Deal and Great Society programs. If the New Deal consensus were so easily undermined, then what the hell have conservatives been fighting so hard for the past 80 years?!

But I disagree with my colleague Joan Walsh, who argues that liberal writers should dial back their criticisms. That attempting to determine and accurately depict the nature and scale of the problems enables “completely unbalanced and unhinged coverage of whatever the problem may be.”

Generally, I think Healthcare.gov’s early failures have provided the left an opportunity to prove that it is in better epistemological shape than the right, and the left has taken it. That’s good for liberalism, and good for the people who write about domestic politics from the left.

But the upshots aren’t entirely abstracted from the technocratic challenge of making Obamacare work.

Liberals are contributing to the ongoing public relations fiasco, but that’s a good thing for the law. If the only people making noise about Healthcare.gov were its avowed enemies, decision makers in the administration would be much more likely to create false bases for denying the extent of the challenges. If Ezra Klein and Ryan Lizza say Healthcare.gov is a giant mess and the stakes for fixing it enormous, they’re likelier to listen, and respond as best they can.

That applies even more vis-à-vis the objective nature of the technological blunders, as opposed to the easier-to-describe subjective experiences those blunders create for consumers. It pains me to say this, but I think Joan is giving Obama and his administration too much credit in assuming they have a handle on the essence and scope of the problems. Obviously they know it’s bad. But it’s still unclear why they were so blindsided, and what precise steps they have taken to assure that trusted intermediaries with technical expertise are giving Obama a clear-eyed assessment of the challenges now that the site is live and the open-enrollment period slowly closing.

We know that Obama has assembled a tech team, including some trusted outside experts, to fix Healthcare.gov. Hopefully some of them are providing Obama and his top aides a better-than-blinkered assessment of the architecture and how long it will take to repair. Hopefully that’s why Obama pronounced with such confidence on Monday morning at the White House that the site will be fixed.

But we don’t really know for sure.

About a month ago, I attended a background briefing with senior administration officials — both communicators and policy experts — in advance of Healthcare.gov’s big launch. It was clear they believed there’d be some snags, but it was also clear that they believed the site’s problems would be fixable and that it would be the main point of access for consumers before the end of the year.

Yesterday, at a similar briefing, officials de-emphasized the importance of the website and, three weeks after launch, said that they’ve deployed more human resources to enroll people via other channels. They were unable to provide layman’s explanations of the site’s architectural flaws, and if they’re confident that it would be working well enough to provide consumers a reliably decent experience in short order, they didn’t convey it in the West Wing on Monday.

One official did say, “It’s our expectation that the ability of folks to go through beginning to end will be sufficiently enhanced by the time we hit November that folks can go through.” That would moot a lot of the concerns, and most of the concern trolling, too. But the officials also said that problems were still being diagnosed, which suggests they don’t necessarily have a complete grasp of their extent, and can’t be sure that fixes won’t create a cascade of new problems.

I asked whether there’s any chance that the system can’t be fixed with serial tweaks.

“We don’t believe that to be the case,” the official said.

The officials said that they’re not yet drafting contingency plans, in the event that the technical challenges prevent them from enrolling enough people to make the markets viable. But they also emphasized that the law gives the administration latitude to relax certain provisions if they ever reach that point

“The law as written provides a great deal of flexibility to make sure that no one who is trying to get insurance, or can’t afford insurance … that you are not going to pay a penalty.”

If we’re really not facing the possibility that the site won’t be working by early next year, why would the law’s flexibility matter?

Being sanguine about these issues won’t get them resolved any faster, and won’t do anything to prevent the administration from becoming dispirited and letting the window they have to buoy the system close.

No matter what the press has done, nobody who’s actually in the market for insurance would have mistaken the rollout for a success, and what ultimately matters is making sure the website becomes a reliable service for consumers. Without enough consumers the law won’t work right and if it doesn’t work right the recriminations will be thousands of times worse — for Obama, Democrats, liberalism and the uninsured — than they have been so far.

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