Teachers' Pets

By ERIC WILLS

Dean C. Kahl, a chemistry professor at Warren Wilson College, acknowledges that scientists in his field aren't exactly famous for being warm and approachable. "People talk about these crazy chemists," he says, conducting all sorts of experiments in their basement labs.

But Avogadro, a cat adopted by professors at Warren Wilson in 1985 and named after the 19th-century...