Cat Predicts Patients' Deaths.

Oscar the cat seems to have an uncanny knack for predicting when nursing home patients are going to die, by curling up next to them during their final hours. His accuracy, observed in 25 cases, has led the staff to call family members once he has chosen someone. It usually means they have less than four hours to live.

Oscar has lived almost all of his two years in the third-floor dementia unit at the Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation Center in Rhode Island. Most of the people he visits are unconscious, so his visits don’t frighten them. Experts don’t know what clues Oscar senses, but an animal behaviorist says the only way to really track his record of predictions is to carefully document how Oscar behaves with everyone. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/25/AR2007072501753.html -via Arbroath