Hamster Power

While I appreciate what they are trying to do with this, I hate it:

You can find a lot more information about the project, including how to build your own (please don't) over at their website.

Naked Mole Rats and Acid

Ars Technica has a fascinating article on naked mole rats and their lack of sensitivity to acid. Naked mole rats live en masse in burrows which tend to be low on oxygen and high on carbon dioxide. As a result, they have made a number of evolutionary advances that allow them to thrive in this environment.

Naked mole rat burrow.

One of these evolutionary changes is that naked mole rats have a notably low pH count. This ends up allowing them to inhibit the dispersal of nerve signals quickly, reducing the overall effect of the acid.

The full article is at arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/12/acid-inhibits-naked-mole-rat-acid-sensors-instead-of-activating-them.ars and contains a great deal of information on *how* this actually happens. Naked mole rats are an interesting species, and while I am glad that our domestic rats do not resemble their cousins in appearance, I wish they shared some notable physical characteristics (for instance, there is no documented case of cancer in naked mole rats).

Naked mole rat.

They might not be pretty, but there is a lot to learn from them.

Empathy in Rats

Ars Technica has a wonderful write-up today of new research from Science discussing research into rat empathy. The full article is at arstechnica.com/science/news/2011/12/rats-show-empathy-will-come-to-the-aid-of-other-rats.ars.

Essentially, rats were placed in a pen that had a rat trapped in a center cage. The rats were able to free the trapped rat by rotating a door. Researchers also placed rats in the cage when the center cage was empty. Over a 12 day period, researchers were able to study the actions of each rat and observe any changes in action that developed during that time.

I am fascinated by the end findings. The loose rats were visibly upset when they were in proximity of the trapped rats, and by the end of the trial 100% of female rats and 70% of male rats became door openers. Overall, the trapped rats were released 77% of the time, yet when the center cage was empty, the door was opened only ~13% of the time. This suggests it was the presence of the trapped rat that led the free rats to release the door.

Check out the full article for more details on the study, including how things changed when chocolate chips were introduced.