Killer kitty?

[mattp]

A cat has amazed medics - by predicting when nursing home patients are about to die.

Oscar curls up next to elderly residents in the last few hours of their lives, reports The Sun.

Rest of article at www.ananova.com

Comments

[athanasius.livejournal.com]

Heh, when I saw this (at www.theregister.com first, and later on news.bbc.co.uk too) my first thought was "What? Maybe the cat is KILLING them!".

And I'm a cat lover.

[mattp.livejournal.com]

I had a similar thought. TBH that's more likely than the prescient ability to forsee death.

The other explanation is that the cats has loads of false positives and sits with everyone for a while, each in turn.

It was an article in The Sun, after all :-)

[athanasius.livejournal.com]

Aye, a thought about false positives going unreported had crossed my mind as well. The BBC article does have a bit about the cat being terribly upset if it gets kicked out of the room before the person in question has gone though, so it does seem rather insistent that it be near THAT particular person at the time.

[mattp.livejournal.com]

I'm now having thoughts of the film Ringu. Don't let the cat sit on you or you'll die within four hours!

[thefounder.livejournal.com]

i assume this apparent foresight on the part of the cat is merely its ability to see Death, as all cats can see him.

[wechsler.livejournal.com]

"His accuracy - seen in 25 cases in the past year - has led staff to call family once he chooses someone."

Can you imagine the phone calls?

Erm, Hi, we think your Dad's about to pass away.

Oh no! Why do you think this?

Well, it's, erm. He's, ummm. Uh, we've had negative results from a cat scan.

[xlerb.livejournal.com]

There was an article on the death cat in the New England Journal of Medicine, I heard, so it's actually a bit more than just tabloid fare.

[bluehelen.livejournal.com]

Cats are psychic. They always seem to know when you are ill/ upset/ frightened as well.

[paul.livejournal.com]

Maybe a Church Grim, but in the form of a Cat rather than a Dog and more of a Nursing Home Grim...?

[cujosmurf.livejournal.com]

(http://photobucket.com)

[lovingboth]

There was something, including talking to one of the staff, on R4 (PM? Today?) recently.

While I'm here :) I've looked back through here as far as 2004 and not spotted it - remember that board game where the pieces are dice? Do you want a copy? Missing two dice, but they should be easy to replace...

[mattp.livejournal.com]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Duell was the article. I'd be interested, yes please. It can wait though - depending on luggage loads can you takeit to BiCon? I'm sure people there would appreciate it, so it's as good a place as any.