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Work From Home Pets Demand Publishing Rights

Sunday, March 13, 2022

As Omicron wanes and UCSF opens up cautiously again (hopefully for the last time), an unexpected group of researchers are fighting to have their contributions over the course of the pandemic recognized.

Since March of 2020, many scientists have adopted the practice of working from home due to shelter in place orders, and only going to lab when needed to do experiments. This practice has caused significant isolation among researchers and introduced a new opportunity for collaboration; with none other than our beloved house pets. Over the past 2 years, our pets have been faithfully accompanying us in our work from home scientific exploits.

Now that we are encouraged to once again return to in person work, will the contribution of our furry friends simply be brushed aside and forgotten? Cats, in particular, have been extremely vocal about this situation, prompting an investigation from the Synapse team.

The practice of cats as co-authors on papers is not new. F.D.C Willard, a cat from 1975, boasts 3 coauthored publications and a sole single-author publication in reputable physics journals. More recently in January this year, a lucky human slave has also benefitted from the help of her feline master.

Not convinced? Synapse has gone behind the scenes to capture the working moments of these cats.

The last we heard, dogs were concerned too, but they were barking up the wrong tree.