(Photo from Ashefire.net’s Fat Pets gallery)

Why do we love fat cats? Duh! Because they’re so cuddly, cute and fat, of course!

Many fat cats have become Internet phenomenon – the web has seen several viral emails on this subject (including a famous fake one that purportedly show a monstrously large mutant cat found in an abandoned nuclear research facility, see below).

The fattest cat on record is Himmy, a tabby belonging to Thomas Vyse of Redlynch, Queensland, Australia. Himmy weighed 46 lb., 15.25 oz, and died in 1986 at 10 years of age. Fearing people will simply overfeed their cats to top the record, a fully justifiable reason, Guiness Book of Records stopped accepting applications for this record.

The average weights for adult male and female cats are 6.2 lb and 5.4 lb, respectively (with neutered cats ranging from 7 to 11 lb). So, why do these fat cats weigh so much? Sarah Hartwell explains it all here: Feline Medical Curiosities: Dwarf Cats, Giant Cats, Fat Cats.

Scientists are baffled by a huge (about the size of Connecticut) glowing luminescence in the Indian Ocean, as shown in the satellite picture above:

"The circumstances under which milky seas form is almost entirely unknown," says Steven Miller, a Naval Research Laboratory scientist who led the space-based discovery. "Even the source for the light emission is under debate."

Link

Gotta admire the creativity! (Found at Nothing to do with Arbroath)

When illustrator Dylan Meconis did a Simpsonification of Battlestar Galactica characters Six and Baltar, the Internet was abuzz. Now, she did the whole cast: Link (via Drawn)

Hubble Space Telescope took a picture of a new red spot in Jupiter, dubbed "Red Spot Jr.":

"Red Spot Jr." as it is being called, formed after three white oval-shaped storms—two of which were at least 90 years old—merged between 1998 and 2000.

A similar merger took place centuries ago and formed the bigger and legendary Great Red Spot, a storm twice as big as Earth and almost 300 years old.

Scientists are blaming increasing temperature on the planet, a Jupiter "global warming".

Link (via Scribal Terror)

In 2004, two Christian camp counselors were killed in an isolated Northern California coast beach. The case remains unsolved, and now the Sonoma County Sheriff’s Office has released clues to the mystery, hoping that someone can help solve this case:

The items included drawings of devil-like faces drawn onto nearby driftwood.

In addition, there was a "Camo 40 High Gravity Lager" beer bottle found on the beach, a distinctive hat, a journal in which beach visitors wrote entries, and a picture of a necklace similar to one that Cutshall may have been wearing.

SF Gate Article | Sonoma Sheriff’s Press Release[pdf] (via Information Junk)