Venus the Two-Faced Cat a Mystery
August 31 2012
By: Katia Andreassi
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2012/08/120831-venus-two-faced-cat-genetics-animals-science/
Summary:
Venus is is the world's most famous cat. One half of her face is black with a green eye while the other is orange with a blue eye. Many scientists think that Venus is a chimera. According of myths a chimera is a monster that is made up of parts of different animals. A feline chimera is a feline that has cells that contain two types of DNA. Another interesting thing about Venus is her blue eye. Since cats usually have green or yellow eyes and only Siamese cats or white cats have blue eyes which is why nobody knows why Venus has a blue eye. This cat shows how changes in genes mutate a living organism. Also this two-faced cat shows still how much scientists have not yet studied and discovered.
This article is connected to what we are learning in science class because we just finished the topic of classification and this article talked about a house cat and a house cat is a placental mammal and vertebrate. I found this article interesting because I never heard of an animal having two types of DNA in a cell and having such a fascinating appearance. I think that Venus, the cat in the article, affects our society in a good way because scientists are studying it and trying to find out what caused her face to be separated into two halves. From this article I learned that usually there is only one type of DNA in a cell but sometimes there are exceptions when a cell has 2 types of DNA and that can cause mutation.
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