illuminating science

This is faintly creepy - a cat that can predict deaths in a hospital. It’s not quite like a feline Grim (ala Harry Potter) where the cat turns up and they just die - rather that the cat somehow senses when they’re almost ready to go and will curl up with them in bed. Apparently, they now call the patient’s family if the cat starts purring at the door, and it has given some families time to say goodbye they wouldn’t have otherwise had! The most likely explanation is some change in either the scent or sound of the patient (e.g., relaxed breathing) which the cat can detect, but it’s quite fascinating nevertheless.

(Of course, reading it, I couldn’t help but at least consider which way the causality runs here. It’s the old problem - correlation doesn’t imply causation. It could be the cat visits them because he senses they’re dying; but it could also be the cat, for example, aggravates their sinuses and tips them over the edge! I think that’s pretty unlikely though!)