Saturday, July 28, 2007

Girl Scientist on the scent of death

From http://scienceblogs.com/grrlscientist/2007/07/can_animals_predict_impending.php#more
"According to an article that was just published in the New England Journal of Medicine, a two-year-old cat that lives in Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Providence, Rhode Island, can correctly predict impending death among the residents. Oscar the cat has a habit of curling up next to patients who are in their final hours, and so far, he has been observed to be correct in 25 cases.
...
However, I know that many mammals (and even a few bird species) have a very acute sense of smell, and are probably relying smell to detect small biochemical changes in sweat, for example, that enables them predict health events in humans such as impending death or seizures, or to detect malignant cancers."
Look at the comments too'
Also lots of articles on bonobos in science blogs. Here is a link to one by a young researcher who actually worked with them:
http://primatediaries.blogspot.com/2005/11/bonobos-behind-enemy-lines.html

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