A not entirely gratuitous cat post

ATTENTION ATTENTION ATTENTION!  The Carnival of the Cats will be at Catcall next Sunday, and Laurence is planning a Carnival of the Cats #102 raffle:

I'd really like to make this a big carnival this time around to celebrate the fact that catblogging has gotten its paw in the door with the MSM here with a Chronicle.Community readerblog.

If there's over 100 sites submitting catblogging posts to the Carnival of the Cats this week, I'll raffle out four special cat-related gifts among the lucky participants.

So here is another cat post, pushing toward that hundred.

But I also have a relevant link, via inkyCIRCUS -- Brain injury may cause chronic fatigue:

By Helen Carter | ABC Science Online

Chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS) might be caused by a temporary 'brain injury' during the early, inflammatory stages of glandular fever, according to Australian scientists.

"We believe that parts of the brain which control perception of fatigue and pain are damaged during the acute infection phase of glandular fever," says lead researcher, Professor Andrew Lloyd from the University of New South Wales.

The researchers, who publish their study this week in the Journal of Infectious Diseases, believe the Epstein-Barr virus, which causes glandular fever, might trigger CFS in some people.
. . .
The scientists found the virus itself does not cause this ongoing fatigue but they hypothesise that a 'hit and run' brain injury does.
. . .
The study is the first to follow patients within a few weeks of acute glandular fever infection for a year.
. . .
The scientists will test their hypothesis by doing brain scans on study participants.

I've seen hypotheses about Epstein-Barr before, but none that have been validated by research. It will be interesting to see what becomes of this one.