MAR 07
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Playing Dirty
The latest edition of Playrights – an international journal of the theory and practice of play ( from the International Play Association ) alerts us to the :
- from 2005 which found that no less than 72% of the UK children interviewed during the study “ claimed they regularly avoid messy indoor and outdoor play because they worry about getting told off by their parents for getting their clothes dirty. “
Hinting too that “ these days, play seems to consist of spending hours in front of the TV watching videos and playing computer games.”
As a countermeasure, and to encourage more hands-on real-world down-and-dirty playful activities, the sponsors of the research, Unilever, have identified a list of 33 activities which they suggest that all children ( who have the opportunity ) should do before they’re ten years old.
Examples :
“ Roll on your side down a grassy bank “
“ Ride a bike through a muddy puddle “
“ Make a painting using your hands and feet “
؟ ؟ ؟
Note:
Unilever, via their subsidiary Lever Fabergé Ltd. are the makers of :
Persil™, Surf™, Comfort™, Cif™, Domestos™, Sure™,
Dove™, Lynx™, Impulse™, Timotei™, Sunsilk™, Organics™, Physio Sport™, and Lux™
30 MAR 07 (late edition)
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Canine caudal conundrum
[ Frustratingly, despite a concerted effort over the past week, Really Magazine has been unable to source exact details of the following new study . . however . . . ]
The March issue of Current Biology, is carrying an unusual correspondence article , subject : Asymmetric tail-wagging in dogs.
After careful examination of tail-angles from video evidence ( 30 dogs ), the researchers, from the universities of Bari and Trieste , Italy, are confident in their proposal that dogs predominantly wag their tails to the right when they see something familiar, such as their owner, and to the left when confronted with something unfamiliar and possibly threatening , such as another large dog.
The research raises important new neurological, linguistic and even moral questions .
• Is there scope for assuming that there could be some form of ‘language’ encoded into the wagging ?
• Is it ethical to routinely ‘dock’ the tails of some breeds ?
Suggestions for possible further study :
• Vertical and circular tail movements ?
• Are dogs ' handed ' as per humans ?
• Cats ? Tail-wagging : meaning(s) of.
• Crocodiles ?: ditto
Short video here :
30 MAR 07
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The four 'Q’s of leadership
Journal of the day : the International Journal of Business Governance and Ethics.
. . . and, in the current issue, an article entitled : Leadership at the top
The recent research examines the role of the Leadership Dimensions Questionnaire (LDQ) - a ' new instrument to assess top leaders ‘ .
Unfortunately, Really Magazine has been unable to source an on-line
copy of the questionnaire, but we did find this
( from the same author) as
a reference.
Where we learn that IQ + EQ + MQ = LQ
( IQ is Intelligence, EQ is Emotional intelligence , MQ is Managerial Intelligence and LQ is Leadership Intelligence )
29 MAR 07
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Nutraceuticals in Maryland
A recently completed resesrch project from the University of Maryland has opened up the possibilities for a " Healthier Pizza " - or at least one with more antioxidants in it
Today's UM Newsdesk press-release here
Some more tech details here
27 MAR 07 (late)
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Real-World psychology in action
Portugal’s oldest and largest (?) national TV and radio network RTP has just completed an enormous independently-audited phone-in survey indentifying the ‘ Greatest Portuguese ‘ person man* of all time.
Around 160,000 respondents called in - and the clear winner was announced last Sunday – with no less than 41% of the votes cast.
- who controlled Portugal as a quasi-fascist quasi-dictator for nearly four decades
- with the support of the army, the secret police ( the PVDE - which he created ) , and of course full-on media censorship.
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His term came to an abrupt end in 1968 when a deckchair which he was using collapsed - provoking a major stroke from which he never recovered. ( It’s alleged that he believed that he was still running the country until he died two years later ).
* Note : The viewers’ votes democratically determined that there should be no women in the top 10.
27 MAR 07
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Posthumanist Performativity and Fat Bodies
The latest ( March ) issue of the journal Geoforum is carrying a research article from the Department of Geography at the UK’s University of Durham which investigates the subject of Fat Body Topographies – looked at from a Posthumanist Performativity viewpoint.
“ . . . fat body topographies are identified through which fat has its own internal momentums, a distinct spatial form on the body and can exist ambiguously both inside and outside the body. Secondly, fat is conceptualised in relation to its force as illustrated by the capacities fat bodies have to ‘do’ certain activities and to inhabit subject positions which normative representational accounts of fat bodies exclude. “
The article, which describes the processes through which fat bodies are materialised, touches on several philosophical concepts which were unfamiliar to our editorial dept. – so we have prepared a keyword-guide gleaned from a ( seminal ? ) 2003 article from the University of Southern California – Santa Cruz. Core subject : Posthumanist Performativity ( as referenced by the new paper ).
• Performativity - that reiterative power of discourse to produce the phenomena that it regulates and constrains.
• Intra-action - an inexhaustible dynamism that configures and reconfigures relations of space-time-matter. ( in contrast to the more usual ‘ interaction ’)
• Thingification - the turning of relations into ‘ things ‘, ‘ entities ‘ and ‘relata‘.
• Matter - is substance in its intra-active becoming - not a thing, but a doing, a congealing of agency. Matter is a stabilizing and destabilizing process of iterative intra-activity.
• phenomena - the ontological inseparability of agentially intra-acting ' components '.
• Agential realism. - an account of technoscientific and other practices that takes feminist, antiracist, poststructuralist, queer, Marxist, science studies, and scientific insights seriously.
• Onto-epistem-ology - the study of practices of knowing in being
• Exterioritywithin-phenomena. ( sorry, Really Mag has failed to find a clear definition as yet – can any readers help out ? )
26 MAR 07
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Get Smart
If you are likely to be in or around London’s South Kensington about this time next month, and you’d like to brush-up on the concept of ‘ Deep Smarts ’ , then drop into Imperial College for an update.
Professor Dorothy Leonard, from Harvard Business School, will present the lecture - ' Deep Smarts: Harnessing the Power of Practical Wisdom ' on April 24th at 6 p.m.
For those readers unfamiliar with ‘ Deep Smarts ‘ , they can be loosely described as :
“ . . . a potent form of expertise based on first-hand life experiences. “
Bearing in mind however that :
“ . . . by their very nature, deep smarts cannot be wholly captured or transferred in any text or oral form. “
Enigmatic though they are, it’s suggested that many companies – indeed
many organisations - may well be a repository for individuals who are replete
with Deep Smarts – waiting to be tapped, extrapolated, nurtured, transferred
and generally capitalised upon.
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Readers who are still not 100% clear on the concept can find a practical example here : where the professor explains how a ‘ Rocket Scientist ‘ won a billion dollar contract for his company by solo-brainstorming a new Deep Smart manufacturing method - to make missile-based weapons systems.
Impressive though some might find the example, Really Magazine is temporarily restraining its enthusiasm - preferring instead to hold out for a possible future where ' Deep Smart ' might be replaced by ' Deep Wise '
23 MAR 07
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G&T
The UK’s National Academy for Gifted and Talented Youth ( NAGTY ) conducts research.
“ The research conducted in the Centre will be demonstrably non-partisan and un-evangelical about gifted and talented provision. It will meet, as far as this can be achieved, established criteria for objectivity and reliability, in line with other rigorous research. “
With this remit in mind, the academy has recently completed an online survey of nineteen gifted students : about their use of Heavy Metal Music.
“ specifically about using Heavy Metal for catharsis, literally using the loud and often aggressive music to jump out frustrations and anger. “
The students – whilst not considering themselves to be ‘ Metalheads ’ - acknowledged regular use of Heavy Metal – especially when they were in a ‘ bad mood ’.
“ Perhaps the pressures associated with being gifted and talented can be temporarily forgotten with the aid of music. As one student suggests, perhaps gifted people may experience more pressure than their peers and they use the music to purge this negativity.”
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Also see :
From Local Worlds of Giftedness to Global : the World Council for Gifted and Talented Children, 17th Biennial World Conference, Sunday 5th - Friday 10th August 2007, University of Warwick, England ( registration £230, includes a Mediaeval Evening on the 9th )
؟ ؟ ؟
Some pearls of wisdom ( courtesy moviewavs.com ) from the unmissable 1984 movie This Is Spinal Tap
22 MAR 07
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Computed crashes
The Statistical Consulting Service (SCS) at Ohio State University has developed a new software suite to forecast pinpoint likely locations of crashes on the state’s roadways.
The software relies on a 900 Mb database of every traffic accident, injury and fatality on Ohio state roads between 2001 and 2005. It cost $50,000 to develop and requires two weeks of processing time at Ohio Supercomputer Center ( OSC ) to run over its algorithms.
Output, in the form of 50 gigabytes of data regarding predictions about traffic hotspots, are combined with Google Earth ™ maps to give a visual representation of troublesome areas.
Results :
“ Not surprisingly, the software indicates that most speeding accidents in Ohio happen during weekday rush hours, and most drunk-driving accidents happen on the weekends between 2:00 and 3:00 a.m. -- after the bars close. “
The SCS compared the results of their computations with feedback from the state highway patrol’s Quantitative Analysis Group – which monitors the real-world situation on a day-to-day basis :
" It confirmed what they already knew, which is fine “
Read the OSU press-release here :
20 MAR 07
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Lights : Camera : Action : Popcorn : Therapy :
The Association for Psychological Science (APS) is drawing attention to a new science journal ‘ Projections ’ * , due to be launched later this year, which will focus entirely on the psychological aspects of cinema.
According to the APS, scrutiny of the psychological implications of movies has progressed significantly over the last few decades - and psychological film study is no longer the “ lightweight stuff ” that it once was :
Some jump-cut quotes to clarify :
“ It’s incredibly more sophisticated - we’re looking at the different dimensions of film experience, at the cognitive component of film, as the human mind mediates what comes out in terms of behavior.”
“ We are in an amazing age of technology, in which the image itself plays a paramount part in shaping the way we think.”
“ You can discount [a film] and initiate getting rid of a strong emotion by discounting reality . . . but if it’s based on reality, you cannot discount it.”
“ The whole idea is that we experience things internally, subjectively, if we experience them for real. But the emotional response can be exactly the same in real life as in reel life.”
The lights have been dimmed, the smell of freshly popped corn is drifting our way, and we keenly await the launch of the journal – which could well be a rich new source of material for Really Magazine to draw attention to.
Read the article here
* Note : Not to be confused with the currently existing science journal ‘ Projections ‘ from MIT
19 MAR 07
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' Microbes avec le modèle '
The SymbioticA lab at the University of Westerns Australia is a unique university dept.
Since its formation in 2000, the art and science collaborative research laboratory has been enabling artists to “ engage in wet biology practices in a biological science department. “
A project of note is Micro'be' Seamless Wear – clothes made from individual sheets of cellulose - produced as a byproduct by bacteria during the process of decomposing wine into vinegar.
The cellulose sheets are draped over moulds to produce garments which are entirely seamless.
One current handicap of the technology is that, to remain in one piece, the cellulose sheets have to be kept wet - but the lab is working on ways to polymerize the material to increase its strength.
Garments produced in this way “ will not only rupture the meaning of traditional interactions with body and clothing; but will also raise questions around the contentious nature of the living “
Presumably available in red , white or rosé ?
17 MAR 07
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Typo-graphics of the day
Google™ search results for :
Uninversity 24,600
Uinversity 60,900
Unviersity 344,100
Unversity 1,080,000
16 MAR 07 (late)
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The night before the day after
Next Tuesday (20th Mar.) the University of Portsmouth (UK) will be hosting a free discussion via their Café Scientifique project. Subject :
Physiology of Alcohol and Hangovers
How does alcohol affect the various systems in our bodies, our mood, our behaviour, and our ability to function ( including the day after ) ?
Matt Richardson from the Environmental Physiology Group at Mid-Sweden University will drive the proceedings.
No booking is necessary, just turn up on the night at Le Café Parisien ( Contemporary Dining and an extensive list of European and New World wines + a selection of imported bottled beers ) before 8pm
16 MAR 07
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Mineral of the day
Herbertsmithite
A Herbertsmithite Photogallery
Why mention it today ?
“ Even if herbertsmithite is not a new state of matter, we shouldn't be surprised if one is found soon “ says a quantum computing specialist from Microsoft Station Q at the University of California, Santa Barbara.
Us too.
Until then though, our money is split 50/50 between Diithium Crystals and Kryptonite.
Note : Herbertsmithite is named after the mineralogist Herbert
Smith
15 MAR 07 (late)
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Service
First, a definition :
Intercessory : having the function of interceding, esp. a prayer to God on behalf of another person.
As part of their exploration of Use-Inspired Research and Social Embeddedness, a new study from the College of Human Services at Arizona State University has scientifically examined whether praying on someone’s behalf works or not.
It’s published in the current (March) issue of the journal Research on Social Work Practice.
Result : Yes.
The study was a ‘meta-analysis’ - in other words a systematic accumulative look at previous studies. In this case there were 17, which were analysed using randomized double-blind techniques.
The conclusion was p =.015 meaning ( if our understanding of statistical hypothesis testing is correct ) that there’s only a 1.5% chance that the results could be accidental.
• Read the Arizona State University (ASU) press-release
here :
• Another view from the ASU, this time from their publication WebDevil.
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Note: Intriguing though the work is, Really Magazine would like to draw attention to a syndrome which sometimes undermines the credibility of meta-analyses in general – the so-called ‘ File-Drawer Effect ’
15 MAR 07
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Spinning to quit
Today is No Smoking Day in the UK, and, as part of the effort, the School of Sport and Health Sciences at Exeter University have published a press-release drawing attention to new research which might help smokers quit.
Take a short walk.
A review of 12 previous studies has shown that a single bout of moderate exercise – as moderate as a brisk five-minute walk, can significantly reduce cravings.
And as the lead researcher puts it :
“ If a drug revealed the same effects it would immediately be marketed as a valuable aid to help people quit smoking or cut down. “
As might be expected, the university itself has a comprehensive no-smoking policy and a wide range of exercise classes and sports activities available for the students – any of which would presumably help to cut down smoking addiction.
e.g.
[
Sadly, we never had access to such facilities in my U-days. Ed. ]
14 MAR 07
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U+269B
Yesterday, Iran issued its new 50,000 Rial banknote featuring a large depiction of U+269B in understated pink.
For some reason, only a small percentage of the plethora of news sources covering the story have decided to publish the required picture – perhaps they’re concerned about copyright infringements – we did chance upon one though :
It should be noted that the symbol has traditionally been used for decades to variously depict ‘ the Atomic Age’ , ‘ Scientific Research ‘ and ‘ Progress ‘ etc etc.
It’s the international symbol for the atom – not radioactive fission or fusion – so, why nearly every news item you will find on the story mentions the word ‘ bombshell ’ is unclear. ( The link above is one of the rare exceptions )
It's almost as if the majority are just regurgitating some press-release or other ? . . .
And of course it’s by no means the first time that the symbol has appeared in relation to monetary items across the world
13 MAR 07
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Intriguingly too expensive
If you are a manufacturer or reseller of a new product which you want to draw to the attention of consumers, researchers from Harvard Business School and London Business School have an idea for you.
Their new study makes a case for ‘ Willful Overpricing ‘ as a means of encouraging consumers to think.
“ . . . a price above the consumer’s initial willingness to pay might be thought provoking and enhance the perception of relevance with a certain probability. “
266 experimental subjects were paid $5* to participate in imaginary buying
scenario where they would notionally purchase hypothetical organic lettuces
or conjectural fair-trade coffee packs.
Extensive mathematical evaluation of the data which they supplied during
20 minute on-line appraisals supported the hypothesis that :
“ [a] sophisticated firm might decide to use price as a stimulus to think ”
Don’t make the price too high though – or, from the consumers’ point of view it may stray into the top-end of the ‘ don’t think ’ range ( stupidly cheap or stupidly expensive ) .
Your task then is to apply a so-called transgressive price at the top of the ‘ think ’ range ( in between the two “no-brainer” extremes ) .
؟ ؟ ؟
Read the
paper here ( for US$18.00 ) in the current issue of the Journal of
Marketing Science.
or here ( for free ). The choice is yours.
* Note [ Seems a touch low
? Ed. ]
12 MAR 07
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Running in circles
Walking and running looks easy, but, as robotics labs and computer-graphics animators have discovered to their chagrin over the past few decades, there’s much more to it than meets the eye.
Extensive research has greatly increased the understanding of humanoid and animal-oid gaits – but there are still some fuzzy areas in the knowledge pool.
Like, for example, what happens when people run around in circles.
But now, a new study published in the current ( March ) issue of the Journal of Experimental Biology has examined this aspect in some detail.
Five male humans accepted the task of running as fast as they could around circles of 2, 4, 6, 8 and 12 m diameter ( with and without tethers ).
“ Sprinters generated significantly smaller peak resultant ground reaction forces during normal curve sprinting compared to straight sprinting. “
They also ran considerably slower around the curves than on the straight. For example, at 6 m diameter they ran 42% slower than on the staight.
This effect had already been established in a previous study from the same two authors in back in 2001 - also using five men running in circles of 2, 4, 6, 8 and 12 m diameter ( with and without tethers ).
“ Sprint velocity decreased with radius, but less so with the tether “
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Also see : ( from the same authors )
• A 1999 study into the effects of running in ' reduced gravity ' ( by use of a harness, rubber springs and a treadmill )
More gait-related research :
• Penguins’ waddles
:
• Eelphants’ runs
• kangaroos’ hops
• Cockroaches’ scurries
• Guinea
fowls’ sprints
• Humans’ hops
( on one and two legs )
10 MAR 07
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As well as can be exepected ?
Back in 2004, a study from the University of Iowa College of Medicine began thus :
“ The effect of reduced hospital staffing during weekends on in-hospital mortality is not known. “
The team investigated the so-called ‘ Weekend Effect ’ by looking at 50 different medical conditions across a sample of more than half a million patients - but only found slight differences in mortality rates.
Of course the differences varied according to the medical problem in question, and now, data on one in particular - stroke - has just been updated by a large new study from the University of Toronto.
The weekend effect for stroke patients is, it seems, very pronounced – at least in Canada.
“ Patients admitted on the weekend had a 14 percent higher risk of dying within seven days of admission compared to patients admitted during the week. “
The lead researcher paraphrased the old adage ‘ Time is Money ’ with the phrase “ Time is Brain “ – survival rates for stroke patients depend on them getting expert treatment with absolute minimum delay.
So perhaps ‘ Money is Brain ’ too – symptomatic of hospitals’ reluctance to pay the extra overtime rates needed to bring weekend staffing levels up to parity.
Read the full story here from the American Heart Association.
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Also see : A Really Magazine item from last year detailing how the weekend effect skews birth rates in Australia - by nearly 30% ( scroll down for the graph )
09 MAR 07
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Spoilt for choice
Please complete the following :
I would prefer to see Really Magazine with a background coloured :
My preferred font would be :
Thank you for your participation.
Although we won’t be taking notice of your choices. They were superfluous and unnecessary – but we introduced them to take advantage of new findings from the Hong Kong University of Science and Harvard Business School. Who have found that asking consumers irrelevant time-wasting questions about brands can increase their preference for the brand in future choices.
The team conducted a complicated series of experiments regarding consumers’ ( viz. students’ ) choice of bands for recordable CDs, pairs of scissors and mp3 players. For half the participants, superfluous tasks were introduced in the brand-preference tasks.
The group which had had been asked to make the superfluous choices remembered their associated brand significantly better - and were more likely to choose the same brand next time.
The implications ?
From the suppliers’ and manufactures’ point of view :
“ [consumer] . . . interactions that require more choice steps than necessary might prove unexpectedly useful. “
Looking forward to its implementation ?
The research is published in the March issue of the Journal
of Consumer Research. ( abstract only )
or read the full paper here:
Further reading :
' On the Pursuit and Misuse of Useless Information, ' Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 75 (1), 19-32.
08 MAR 07
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It’s ok, HE said so.
The debate rages on about whether TV progs, films, or computer games which depict violence might cause viewers to behave more violently.
The Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan decided to take a look a related, and more longstanding subject – will people behave more aggressively if they simply read texts about aggressive acts ? More specifically, religious texts about aggressive acts.
Their recent experiments, which were conducted in the US and Holland, involved the participants reading two texts - one of which was biblical and described violent events, the other included a sentence in which ' God commanded his followers to take arms against others.'
Half the participants were told that the texts were biblical, and the others were told that they came from a ‘ ancient scroll ‘ found by archeologists.
After reading the passages, participants were paired with partners ( who were, in reality, confederates of the experimenters ).
They were then given the opportunity to ‘blast’ their partner with a 105 dB air horn. Which they did ( or didn't ) with varying degrees of enthusiasm.
Results :
" Even among our participants who were not religiously devout, exposure to God-sanctioned violence increased subsequent aggression."
" That the effect was found in such a sample may attest to the insidious power of exposure to literary scriptural violence."
Read Monday's U of M press- release here :
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Possible source material for future research ?
- as provided by The Brick Testament
( click the top right-hand arrow for next frame )
07 MAR 07
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Pessimism on the reef.
The Financial Times compliments Prof. Steve Jones by calling him
“ The Alan Bennett of science writing “
on the cover of his new book,
Coral : A pessimist in Paradise
Interviewed yesterday on BBC Radio 4’s ‘ Start
the Week ’ Prof. Jones describes how he’s happy to accept
the role of ‘ science
vulgarizer ’ – in other words helping to draw attention to the
mysteries and implications of science research for a wider audience.
“ caring and not knowing is an utterly futile pastime . . . you need to know “
The new book encompasses the human genome project, cloning, the oil business, weather patterns and much more - all referenced to the plight of coral reefs across the planet : the current fate of which is indicated by the book’s title.
If you feel you’d like to know – and if you’re refreshed by iconoclastic concepts such as :
“ most of science is actually part of the entertainment industry “
then this book is for you. Even steel-hearted monetarists should read it too - for, as the prof. points out :
“ . . . in the end, the public pays the bills “
If the state of the world's coral reefs are an accurate predictor, the bill could be for a new planet.
[ Apologies for no Amazon link - their associate site-search facility can't find the book at present . Ed. ]
06 MAR 07
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Link of the day
' When more is not enough '
( Note : Havidol ® users may experience a need to change physicians. )
The Knowledge(s)
Turn to the current issue of the journal ‘ Organization Studies ‘ for an explanation regarding the two types of ‘ Tacit Knowledge ‘.
The research paper ‘ Bicycling on the Moon : ’ explains thus :
“ The first kind, ‘somatic-limit tacit knowledge’, has to do with the limitations of the human body and brain and has no consequences for encoding knowledge into machines. The second kind, ‘collective tacit knowledge’, is more ‘ontological’ than biological, having to do with its location in the social collectivity. “
Unfortunately, the full details are for subscribers only ( or a one–off fee of US$25.00 ) but readers may be able to gain insight into the general subject area by scouring a research paper from the same author (2004) : ‘ a Periodic Table of Expertises ‘ which explains how all human expertise touches - at some stage – on tacit knowledge.
Keywords / Keyphrases :
• Mimeomorphic actions
• Golf swings
• Holograms
• Trivial Pursuit™
• The moon landings
• McDonald’s™
• ' Beer mat ' knowledge
• Gravitaional waves
and
• Jerzy Kosinski's book, Being There
The text is supported by several sets of explanatory ‘stickperson’ drawings - which we can’t reproduce for copyright reasons - but the look and feel of which can be more or less roughly characterised by something along these lines :
Really Magazine strongly recommends that you peruse
the paper in full, here - any scientific paper which references Being
There is very definitely worth a look.
05 MAR 07
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The Ig Nobel 2007 tour
. . . will descend on the UK, 9-17 March - encompassing Cardiff, Bristol,
London, Portsmouth and Cambridge.
All the shows are free, and more than four include mini-opera performances, which, along with all Ig Nobel ventures, first make people laugh, then make them think.
Do not miss.
03 MAR 07 (late)
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Losing track of time
Ever been annoyed at having to wait in a queue ? Like, for example, in a Post Office ?
As reported earlier this week in the Star-Telegram it seems that the US Postal Service might be trying to alleviate the problem – by removing the clocks from 37,000 ( or so ) Post Offices.
" We want people to focus on postal service and not the clock."
Really Magazine hasn’t been able to establish whether the clock-removals are a cost-cutting or design-branding exercise – or whether maybe the move has been prompted by consumer psychology research.
There are quite a few theories on how to allay frustration in queues. See this set of papers from the Association of Consumer Research.
Which offers some possibly helpful strategies such as :
• Find ways to cut down the number of people behind the punters in the queue.
• Play background music.
• Don’t have a linear queue ( it makes it easier for punters to gauge the numbers )
etc etc etc
Really Magazine would like to propose the idea though that it’s not simply the length of time spent in the queue that is annoying to customers – it should be multiplied by the perceived pointlessness of having to queue in the first place.
To wit we offer the following solutions :
• Cut down bureaucracy.
• Improve efficiency.
• Employ more staff. ( ooops ! there, we said it – sorry )
03 MAR 07
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Voles in Chicago
Prairie voles ( Microtus ochrogaster ) are socially monogamous rodents that share features of social behavior with humans. In which case, can they be used as models to better understand human psychological problems - such as depression ?
Researchers from the Brain-Body Center, University of Illinois at Chicago, decided to investigate.
They hypothesized that prairie voles would probably become depressed if kept in solitary confinement for 60 days.
Their recent experiment confirmed that, yes, the voles did become depressed, or at least showed all the biochemical signs that they were.
“ These results may provide insight into the mechanisms that underlie the development and/or maintenance of depressive disorders in humans. “
If any readers can explain how, could you let us know please.
Reader Matt J comments :
If the same pathways are used in the brain for vole
depression as well as human depression, then testing on voles with certain
chemicals and with certain
stimuli may work and of course it is easier to perform an autopsy on a vole.
( Fewer forms to fill out. )
02 MAR 07
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