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Do cats give you the blues?

LAST week we reported on the Ig Nobel prize awarded to David Hanauer and colleagues for their finding that patients suffering from cat bites were more than four times as likely to be depressed as other patients (27 September). Just as that page was going to the printers, a colleague said: “Maybe they are depressed because the cat they love bit them.”

The Ig Nobel prize is given for scientific work that makes us laugh,…

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