It has been noted that individuals who are close to death often engage in a sudden flurry of activity in the final days of their lives. People are known to seek to make amends in troubled relationships, confess to prior transgressions and put their financial affairs in order on the very eve of their death. While some people have suggested that the acts themselves might have a profound psychological effect on the person which leads them to 'give in' to their inevitable death, there may be a different scientific reason for this striking pattern of behavior. HUMAN BEINGS INSTINCTIVELY KNOW WHEN THEY ARE GOING TO DIE It is well known that most wild animals are particularly sensitive to the smell of putrescine which is the foul smelling and toxic smell that organisms emit immediately before death and in the stages of putrefaction and decomposition. Wild animals know that this smell is associated with potentially dangerous predators who may have made a fresh kill. In addition to this,