For his birthday last year I gave him an issue of Popular Science from the month/year he was born.

That's awesome. And for a dollar, even better!

We usually chip in to buy our big bosses a Christmas present each year, but my feeling is that everyone who works here likes them. (I'm related, so of course I don't have a problem with it.) Also, they tend to take us out to really nice dinners when everyone's in town for meetings when they could just send all the local staff home at the end of the workday to fend for themselves, so it's not like the flow of giving is all one way.

I like her, but I still feel ooky about it.

Supposedly this cat knew that its human had lung cancer. I have my doubts. Cat nips owner's lung cancer

Now recovering from surgery to remove cancer from his lung, Adams, 59, is crediting his eight-year-old feline friend Tiger for alerting him and his family doctor to a mass in his lung.

"He would climb into bed and take his paw and drag it down my left side -- he was adamant there was something there," he said.

"And it was right where the cancer was."

Adams, who has suffered from bronchitis, asthma and emphysema, had showed no symptoms of lung cancer before his kitty's bizarre examination.

But about seven months ago, after mentioning the cat's strange behaviour to his family doctor, he was referred to a specialist who caught the disease at stage one in his left lung.

"They did an X-ray, they spotted something on the left side," he said.

There have been other instances of dogs and cats detecting cancers, but I'm too lazy to look them up.

When my mom was on home dialysis, her dog was extremely intuitive to how she was doing. If she didn't plug in at her regular time, he would sit by her machine and whine and fuss until she got all set.

Supposedly this cat knew that its human had lung cancer. I have my doubts.

Why? Dogs have been used for certain kinds of tumor detection by smell for years now, which has also led to research on what kinds of chemical markers are detectable in the breath. Cats may not be as trainable for the work, but they share having way more sensitive noses than humans.

(I would want to know how the convo with the doctor actually went -- it seems like a bit of a leap from "my cat keeps poking me", but "I have a feeling that something's changed", in a patient with an extensive history of lung disease, seems like a perfectly reasonable flag.)

Why? Dogs have been used for certain kinds of tumor detection by smell for years now, which has also led to research on what kinds of chemical markers are detectable in the breath. Cats may not be as trainable for the work, but they share having way more sensitive noses than humans

They can also be trained to detect upcoming epileptic attacks, in time to alert the person to get somewhere safe. There's nothing mystical about it, just highly trainable beings whose senses are attuned very differently than ours.

And also dogs iz cool.

I like her, but I still feel ooky about it.

Yeah, ugh. And honestly, the baby/wedding shower thing can get ooky too. Because as much as we all like to think we're not in seventh grade, the fact is that some people will draw a lot more attention, contributions, etc. and it's way too much middle school popularity contest to be comfortable in the workplace.

What's the likelihood that an animal can tell where the cancer is originating?

See, I'm just thinking the cancer-cat story is anecdotal. It could just be a coincidence that the cat was poking at the guy's side.