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Spending More Time Close to Cats Improves Mood, Study Finds

Owners' positive feelings seem to be most strongly associated with how much time they spend close to their cats in everyday life. (Colorado State University)
Owners' positive feelings seem to be most strongly associated with how much time they spend close to their cats in everyday life. (Colorado State University)
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Spending More Time Close to Cats Improves Mood, Study Finds

Owners' positive feelings seem to be most strongly associated with how much time they spend close to their cats in everyday life. (Colorado State University)
Owners' positive feelings seem to be most strongly associated with how much time they spend close to their cats in everyday life. (Colorado State University)

Owners who spent more time physically close to their cats tended to report more positive moods, according to a new study by a Kyoto University-led team.

The study, published in the journal iScience, came amid a common claim that caring for a feline friend has positive effects on human health and well-being while other studies reporting possible negative effects of cat ownership.

This led a team of researchers at Kyoto University to question the idea that simply owning a cat provides intrinsic health benefits. Instead, they wondered whether any benefits or drawbacks to keeping a cat come from the quality of the relationship between the human and cat, particularly how owners interact with their cats in everyday life.

To investigate, the team conducted a one-month study of the daily lives of a group of 29 cats and their 19 owners, recruited through flyers and social media.

In each household, the researchers conducted hormonal analysis through urine samples, attached small Bluetooth Low Energy beacons to the cats' collars to measure daily physical proximity, assessed the owners' moods through questionnaires and observed the cats' behavior toward their owners and unfamiliar people.

The results revealed a hormonal connection between cats and their owners involving oxytocin and cortisol, hormones that are associated with social relationships and stress, respectively.

The team observed a positive correlation between the urinary concentrations of oxytocin in cats and their owners, with higher oxytocin levels in cats linked to lower cortisol levels and fewer negative feelings in their owners.

In fact, the cats' oxytocin levels were more closely associated with their owners' negative mood states than the owners' own oxytocin levels were.

Ultimately, the researchers observed that positive mood states in owners were not connected to how long they had had their cats, but rather to the overall physical proximity between owners and their cats. In other words, owners' positive feelings seem to be most strongly associated with how much time they spend close to their cats in everyday life.

“I think many cat owners are familiar with the sense of comfort and peace they feel when their cat climbs onto their lap seeking affection, they start to pet it, and the cat begins purring contentedly,” said the study’s corresponding author Saho Takagi.

“Our findings suggest that this feeling may be partly reflected in the hormonal connection between cats and their owners, particularly through oxytocin, a hormone involved in the formation of parent-child bonds and social relationships,” he added.

This study helps to explain why previous inquiries into the health benefits of cat ownership have produced inconsistent results by demonstrating that the quality of the relationship between human and cat matters more than simply owning a cat.

However, these findings show only associations, so any causation is still unclear. In the future, the team hopes to explore more deeply how cats and humans influence each other through their everyday interactions.

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Beijing’s Population Expected to Become Super-Aged by 2035

People cross the street at a busy intersection in Beijing, China, 19 October 2026. (EPA)
People cross the street at a busy intersection in Beijing, China, 19 October 2026. (EPA)
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Beijing’s Population Expected to Become Super-Aged by 2035

People cross the street at a busy intersection in Beijing, China, 19 October 2026. (EPA)
People cross the street at a busy intersection in Beijing, China, 19 October 2026. (EPA)

The ‌Chinese capital Beijing is expected to become "super-aged" by 2035, with around one-third of its population aged 60 and above, the official Beijing Daily reported.

Chinese policymakers have made population planning a key part of the country's economic strategy, and this year the government faces a total potential ‌cost of around ‌180 billion yuan ($26.92 billion) ‌to ⁠boost births, according ⁠to Reuters estimates.

One in every three residents of the Chinese capital will be aged 60 or above by 2035, the Beijing Daily reported on Saturday.

Beijing had ⁠5.29 million permanent residents aged ‌60 and above ‌at the end of last year, ‌almost one-quarter of its population, the ‌newspaper said.

The city's government is stepping up support for elderly residents, including raising the basic pension, the report added.

China's population has been shrinking since 2022 and is ageing ⁠rapidly, ⁠complicating government plans to boost domestic consumption and rein in debt, with hundreds of millions of people set to leave the workforce at a time when pension budgets are already stretched.

Demographers and economists argue that fewer children today could mean fewer households and slower consumption growth over time.

Varieties

The Painstaking Task of Cataloguing the World’s Species

A harlequin poison dart frog (Oophaga sylvatica) is pictured at the Tesoros de Colombia (Treasures of Colombia) sustainable farm in Nocaima, Cundinamarca department, Colombia, on July 9, 2024. (AFP)
A harlequin poison dart frog (Oophaga sylvatica) is pictured at the Tesoros de Colombia (Treasures of Colombia) sustainable farm in Nocaima, Cundinamarca department, Colombia, on July 9, 2024. (AFP)
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The Painstaking Task of Cataloguing the World’s Species

A harlequin poison dart frog (Oophaga sylvatica) is pictured at the Tesoros de Colombia (Treasures of Colombia) sustainable farm in Nocaima, Cundinamarca department, Colombia, on July 9, 2024. (AFP)
A harlequin poison dart frog (Oophaga sylvatica) is pictured at the Tesoros de Colombia (Treasures of Colombia) sustainable farm in Nocaima, Cundinamarca department, Colombia, on July 9, 2024. (AFP)

A bumblebee-like insect that was last seen in France 150 years ago was spotted again in the Paris region in 2025.

Had the creature, known by its scientific name Pocota personata, disappeared and returned after all those years? Or did it simply fly around unnoticed this whole time?

The mystery illustrates the challenge facing scientists seeking to catalogue the world's biodiversity, as so much of nature remains poorly understood.

The gap in scientific data on the state of species could feature prominently at the UN's COP17 biodiversity summit opening Monday in Armenia, where countries will take stock of progress in commitments to protect nature.

In order to close that gap in France, the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN) and the National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS) launched a project in June to build a database of the country's plants and invertebrates.

"We know biodiversity is declining, but we are sometimes quite helpless when it comes to quantifying it due to a critical lack of data on the current and past monitoring of species," Rodolphe Rougerie, head of the Dynabiod project, told AFP.

- Staggering unknown -

The scale of the unknown is huge.

A 2011 study estimated that 86 percent of terrestrial species and 91 percent of marine creatures had yet to be formally described.

Even among identified species, their status is often poorly understood. In 2025, scientists had assessed the extinction risk of only about eight percent of known species, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature.

The tools used to identify species include field observations.

While spotting large mammals or certain birds can be relatively simple, the exercise gets trickier when it comes to smaller species, such as insects, fungi or microscopic organisms.

The job can be painstaking.

Every week, MNHN researcher Fanny Kratz checks large white tents that serve as insect traps at the Jardin des Plantes, a botanical garden in the heart of Paris, and 16 other sites. She then uses their DNA to fill gaps in the data.

The task is "very, very long" and "very, very complicated", she said.

A single trap can contain as many as 261 types of DNA, but those genetic traces do not necessarily correspond to 261 different species.

And there are always a few "unknowns" -- DNA that does not match with anything in existing databases.

- 'We are stuck' -

"The difficulty with biodiversity is having reference databases that are rich enough ... so that field work or genetic identification can actually be effective," Kratz said.

The smallest details can make all the difference when trying to identify a specimen, from the size of a leg to the shape of the wing.

And there are relatively few experts in this field.

Researchers often turn to citizen science, enlisting amateur naturalists and the public to put more eyes on the ground.

But that cannot replace scientific expertise and can introduce biases. Observations tend to be concentrated in easily accessible locations while others remain unexplored.

That is particularly true in tropical regions, where areas can be hard to reach and data is scarce despite their extraordinary biodiversity, Kratz said.

While artificial intelligence can analyze enormous quantities of data, it is only as good as the information it has been trained on.

"If we don't have the reference database, we're stuck," Kratz said.

- Muddled message -

It's not just the amount of data that matters. Scientists also need to be able to compare data collected in different places and at different times.

Different monitoring methods can make that difficult.

Rougerie said the result can be a muddled scientific picture.

When data are sparse, scattered or collected using different methods, separate studies can sometimes reach conflicting conclusions about what is happening to the same species.

That can, in turn, fuel claims that the biodiversity crisis is being exaggerated or is difficult to prove.

Without reliable reference databases, Kratz said, "we cannot know what is happening ... what we are capturing or what is disappearing or not ... and therefore how to combat a possible decline or protect this or that species".

Varieties

On the Front Line of Ocean Conservation off Portugal’s Madeira

The four-masted sailing vessel Santa Maria Manuela sails in the open sea off the coast of Madeira, on October 12, 2026 during the "Madeira Ocean" scientific expedition. (AFP)
The four-masted sailing vessel Santa Maria Manuela sails in the open sea off the coast of Madeira, on October 12, 2026 during the "Madeira Ocean" scientific expedition. (AFP)
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On the Front Line of Ocean Conservation off Portugal’s Madeira

The four-masted sailing vessel Santa Maria Manuela sails in the open sea off the coast of Madeira, on October 12, 2026 during the "Madeira Ocean" scientific expedition. (AFP)
The four-masted sailing vessel Santa Maria Manuela sails in the open sea off the coast of Madeira, on October 12, 2026 during the "Madeira Ocean" scientific expedition. (AFP)

Juan Mayorga smiled as a stingray glided across his computer screen, moving gracefully over the seabed near Portugal's Desertas Islands, part of the Madeira archipelago in the Atlantic Ocean.

"It's a good day when we see animals like this," said the Colombian environmental engineer, who is analyzing underwater footage to measure the effects of marine protection.

"This is conservation in action," said Mayorga, 36, who works for Pristine Seas, a marine conservation initiative run by the National Geographic Society.

"As we protect the place, year after year, fish get bigger and bigger and bigger, produce more and more babies, and that is protection working right there."

Mayorga is among nearly 200 scientists taking part in a month-long expedition in October to study the marine environment around Madeira, the birthplace of football superstar Cristiano Ronaldo.

Researchers aboard around 15 vessels are investigating the archipelago's marine life, assessing the health of its ecosystems and exploring how they can better withstand climate change.

Mayorga is analyzing underwater video recorded at depths of 40 to 50 meters (130 to 165 feet) by cameras mounted on metal frames baited to attract fish.

He is particularly interested in comparing waters south of the Desertas Islands, where fishing is completely prohibited, with those to the north, where some fishing is still allowed.

The comparison offers a glimpse of how different levels of protection affect marine life.

- 'Real fight' -

The expedition's flagship is the 70-meter sailing ship Santa Maria Manuela, which has brought researchers to the Desertas Islands, a group of three uninhabited rocky islets about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of Madeira.

Rising steeply from the Atlantic, the islands' rust-colored cliffs, rocky slopes and windswept ridges form a protected nature reserve where seabirds circle above the waves.

On the largest island, Rui Seabra, a 44-year-old researcher from the University of Porto, attaches temperature sensors to rocks exposed at low tide along a small cove.

He wants to understand how crustaceans and sponges fare in sunny and shaded areas, information that could help scientists predict how marine biodiversity will respond to rising temperatures.

"We need to understand how biodiversity will be redistributed, which species will migrate where, what the conditions are here, how they will change, and which species we expect to find here in the future," he said.

Nearby, a marine biologist aboard an inflatable boat collected environmental DNA samples from the water.

The technique can reveal which fish species are present even when they evade the cameras.

"We are on the front lines of the real fight to find solutions that allow us to address problems on the ground," said expedition leader Emanuel Goncalves.

- 'Best weapon' -

The fieldwork comes as a UN biodiversity summit, known as COP17, gets underway Monday in Armenia to discuss efforts to protect the world's natural ecosystems.

Goncalves, chief scientist at Portugal's Oceano Azul Foundation, a marine conservation non-profit, acknowledges the importance of international meetings in setting political priorities.

But "the urgency to act does not allow us to wait for decisions that sometimes take decades," he said.

Madeira has long been a pioneer in marine conservation.

The archipelago includes the main island of Madeira, the beach destination of Porto Santo, the Desertas Islands and the remote Selvagens Islands, about 280 kilometers farther south toward Spain's Canary Islands.

In 1971, authorities established a reserve around the Selvagens Islands to protect Cory's shearwaters, seabirds found around Madeira and other Atlantic islands.

Expanded in 2022, the reserve now covers about 2,600 square kilometers (1,000 square miles), making it the largest protected marine area in the North Atlantic.

Another reserve established around the Desertas Islands in the early 1990s has helped a colony of Mediterranean monk seals, one of Europe's most endangered marine mammals, grow from just eight animals to 31.

"An ocean in a good state of conservation is the best weapon we have against climate change," said Paulo Oliveira, coordinator of the Madeira Ocean conservation program launched in May.