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| What's New Pussy Cat? |
| Can our feline friends predict the future? |
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Bhuwan Thapaliya (Bhuwan)  |
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Published 2006-07-04 18:41 (KST) |
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From time immemorial cats have been associated with magic and witchcraft, but do they really have a sixth sense which enables them to peek into the future? Scientists are working to understand how and why cats can predict dangers that even include earthquakes and volcanoes.
 |  | | | | | | ©2006 Ozan | What do you do when your cat starts acting strangely? Do you ignore it when it begins yowling loudly and pacing fanatically around the house? That might be a mistake that could cost you your life.
On March 21 1944 the town of San Sebastiano al Vesuvio was completely destroyed when Vesuvius, the nearby volcano, unexpectedly burst into life. A fiery torrent of lava and cinders half-a-mile wide cascaded down the hillside killing 30 people. It could well have been 32 had it not been for the action of a two-year-old black cat called Toto.
Toto had been uneasy all afternoon and had to be coaxed indoors at dusk. Just after midnight, as Gianni and his wife Irma lay asleep, Toto clawed at his master's cheek. Gianni pushed him away, but Toto pawed at him again and again until the angry farmer got out of bed with the intention of throwing the cat out of the bedroom.
Toto was normally a docile cat, so Irma persuaded her husband that Toto was warning them of great danger. Quickly throwing a few things into a handcart, they set out to the house of Irma's sister some way off. Vesuvius erupted within the hour, destroying everything in its wake.
A more recent disaster was predicted by the cats of California. In August 1979 many cat owners noticed that their pets were acting strangely. Shortly afterwards there was an earthquake along the Calaveras Fault so powerful that it shook buildings 130 miles away in San Francisco. What is truly remarkable is that the cats predicted what 200 scientific instruments sited along the fault did not.
In Britain during World War II many cats were able to warn their owners of approaching air raids by German bombers. A special medal, engraved with the words "We also serve" was awarded to pets that saved lives with their prompt actions.
Meanwhile, the most amazing case is that of a cat named Poona, who could not prevent murder but led the police to the killer.
Poona's owner, Peggy Pease, had come to India as a governess before World War I. She married an army vet and on his retirement they stayed on in India to run a small animal hospital. By the time of her murder she was a widow in her 70s, and lived with an assortment of stray cats, including Poona, and three servants: a young boy, an elderly cook, and a middle-aged man who had recently joined the household staff.
One day two friends called at the house and found it deserted apart from the cats, who had been locked in a cupboard. There was no sign of Peggy and the servants. Poona and his companions, those who were still living, were desperately hungry and thirsty. One of Peggy's friends agreed to take in the survivors and care for them.
Each day Poona turned up at the police station and tried to get the attention of the officer on duty. After nearly a week one detective looked at Poona and had an idea, if dogs could follow a scent and track their owners, maybe cats could too.
Poona did not disappoint him -- he led the detective to a patch of vegetation near a river at the bottom of Peggy's garden. Searching the undergrowth, the policemen discovered a wooden mallet coated with dried blood and hair. The large tabby then headed for a flowerbed and began scratching furiously at the ground. The bodies of Peggy and her cook were found buried under more than six feet of earth.
The middle-aged servant was arrested a week later, but insisted he was innocent, swearing that he had been visiting relatives and had found the house empty on his return. The police told him that Peggy's cat had led them to the murder weapon and to the bodies and then brought Poona into the room. Poona promptly flew at the suspect, spitting and scratching at him. Totally unnerved, the terrified man broke down immediately and confessed to the gruesome crime.
Sacked for theft, he had come back to the house and battered the old woman to death, killing the other servants as well. He had then shut the cats in the cupboard before hiding the mallet, throwing the boy's body into the river and burying the other two bodies deep under the flowerbed.
Examples like these are numerous, and cats all over the world are credited with saving lives, but exactly how they manage to be so clever remains a mystery.
Do cats have a sixth sense? According to scientists, cats possess the vomeronasal organ, or organ of Jacobson, named after a 19th-century Danish anatomist. It is a small tube of cartilage, half an inch long, situated in the roof of the cat's mouth. The cat sucks air into the tube where it can feel, taste and smell it. It is suspected that this organ allows cats to detect information that humans are unable to sense.
Most scientists note that earthquakes are preceded by a marked increase in electrostatic activity in the air. Cats may be able to detect the presence of positively-charged ions in the atmosphere. It is known that they are sensitive to changes in magnetic fields because their strong homing instinct is upset if they wear a magnet.
And most scientists are certain that cats supplement their sense of vision by using their whiskers to touch the environment around them. As well as their prominent cheek whiskers, cats have smaller whiskers on the muzzle, whiskers above the eyes and whiskers on their lower legs.
Cats also have excellent hearing and can hear sounds up to about 60,000 Hz. Humans, with a few unusual exceptions, can only hear up to about 20,000 Hz. This means that cats can hear the ultrasonic noises made by rats and mice. In addition, according to Sarah Hartwell in her article "How Intelligent Are Cats?," they can pinpoint a sound source to within about 8 degrees thanks to their swivelling ears.
However, despite our growing understanding of cats, many people remain convinced that they are psychic, and have telepathic and extrasensory powers.
So you never know, one day your kitty may save your life! If you're a cat owner do watch your pet carefully.
Thank you, kitty cats.
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Main sources
Bergler, Reinhold "Man and Cat: The Benefits of Cat Ownership" Blackwell Scientific Publications (1989)
Bradshaw, John W S, "The Behaviour of the Domestic Cat" C A B International (1992)
Turner, Dennis C, and Patrick Bateson. "The Domestic Cat: The Biology of Its Behaviour" Cambridge University Press (1988)
The stories about Toto, Poona and the brave cats of California and Britain came from Mirror Today Magazine Vol 7, No.12 (Dec 1994), p.52. |
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©2006 OhmyNews
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