68. ANIMALS: Oscar, the Cat Who Could Predict Death

Weird Island

Oscar seemed like an ordinary kitten when he was adopted by Steere House Nursing and Rehabilitation center in Providence, RI. But the staff and residents at Steere House quickly suspected Oscar had a unique ability. He seemed to be able to predict when someone was going to die.

Heads up, this episode is more speculative than usual. And it includes a lot of talk of death. Keep that in mind while listening.

Episode Source Material - Oscar

• A Day in the Life of Oscar the Cat
• Making Rounds with Oscar: The Extraordinary Gift of an Ordinary Cat - Kindle edition by Dosa, David. Politics & Social Sciences Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.
• Classic cases revisited: Oscar the cat and predicting death - PMC
• Meet Oscar, the Cat that Predicts Death and Provides Comfort
• This Cat Sensed Death. What if Computers Could, Too? - The New York Times
• Can animals predict death? | HowStuffWorks
• Oscar (therapy cat) - Wikipedia
• Cat's 'Sixth Sense': Predicting Death?

General on Cats

• A Brief History of House Cats
• Cats Domesticated Themselves, Ancient DNA Shows
• The Taming of the Cat - PMC
• Stress, security, and scent: The influence of chemical signals on the social lives of domestic cats and implications for applied settings - ScienceDirect
• Dogs Vs. Cats: A Comparison of the 5 Senses – MIDORICIDE

Death and Diseases, further info

• What to expect when someone is in the last few days of life | Hospice UK.
• Core body temperatures during final stages of life—an evaluation of data from in-hospital decedents | SpringerLink
• Heart attack - Symptoms and causes - Mayo Clinic
• Identifying human diamine sensors for death related putrescine and cadaverine molecules | PLOS Computational Biology
• Programmed cell death and apoptosis in aging and life span regulation

Predicting Death

• Development of multivariable prediction models for institutionalization and mortality in the full spectrum of Alzheimer’s disease
• Predicting Death: An Empirical Evaluation of Predictive Tools for Mortality | Medical Journals and Publishing | JAMA Internal Medicine

Studies on Scents

• Scents and Senescence: "Old Person Smell" Is Real, but Not Necessarily Offensive - Scientific American
• The Scent of Disease: Human Body Odor Contains an Early Chemosensory Cue of Sickness
• Sick People Smell Bad: Why Dogs Sniff Dogs, Humans Sniff Humans, and Dogs Sometimes Sniff Humans - Scientific American Blog Network
• Sweat smells like ammonia: Causes and treatment
• Disease and odor: An intriguing relationship
• The electronic nose technology in clinical diagnosis: A systematic review
• 12 Diseases Doctors Can Actually Detect Through Smell

Bio-Detection Dogs

• Diagnostic Accuracy of Canine Scent Detection in Early- and Late-Stage Lung and Breast Cancers
• Dogs can discriminate between human baseline and psychological stress condition odours | PLOS ONE
• How Do Dogs Sniff Out Diseases? | Discover Magazine
• The science of sniffs: disease smelling dogs :: Understanding Animal Research

Therapy Animals / Our Relationship with Animals

• The difference between dead and away: An exploratory study of behavior change during companion animal euthanasia - ScienceDirect
• Animal-assisted therapy in adults: A systematic review - ScienceDirect
• An Evaluation of the benefits that animal-assisted therapy provide to the terminally iII and their families
• Animal-Assisted Intervention for Autism Spectrum Disorder: A Systematic Literature Review | SpringerLink
• Measuring the Effects of an Animal-Assisted Intervention for Pediatric Oncology Patients and Their Parents
• Pet Ownership and Cardiovascular Risk | Circulation

Other Animal Abilities

• Toads able to detect earthquake days beforehand, says study | Animal behaviour | The Guardian
• Sharks use Earth's magnetic field to navigate the seas | Science | AAAS.
• Fire-chasing beetles sense infrared radiation from fires hundreds of kilometres away.