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Shadows at Tate Modern Switch House Viewing Level  

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London Early  

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Scientists Tickle Rats to Try and Figure Out Why We Laugh  
This article was originally posted on Inverse.



By Sarah Sloat

In 1994, researchers noticed that when rats anticipated an opportunity to play, they would let out a series of squeaky chirps. These were high-pitched, measured at 50 kilohertz. The researchers began to question whether these chirps might actually be ... laughter.

A few years later, a senior researcher came to the lab, looked at the junior researcher and said, "Let's go tickle some rats."

Scientists Jaak Panksepp and Jeff Burgdorf document this moment in their 2003 paper "Laughing Rats and the Evolutionary Antecedents of Human Joy?" In it, Panksepp and Burgdorf document how they and their team tickled rats for years. They noticed that the 50-khz vocalizations more than doubled when they tickled the rats versus when the rats were left to their own self-initiated play activities. They learned that just like humans, rats had ticklish spots, namely at the nape of their necks. And they noted that, like human children, juvenile rats found tickling to be a rewarding experience; they ran mazes and pressed levers eagerly, knowing the reward would be a giggle-inducing tickle.


Rats seem to enjoy a good tickle.

"Across subsequent years we became increasingly convinced that we had discovered a true laughter-type response," they write. "We decided to remain open to the possibility there was some type of ancestral relationship between this response, and the primitive laughter that most members of the human species exhibit in rudimentary form by the time they are three months old."

For as far as we've come in our understanding of the brain, we still don't understand why we laugh. We know that emotional feelings are rooted within the action apparatus of mammalian brains. There's also strong evidence that mammals experience emotions very similar to humans: fear, rage, lust, care, panic, play. But laughing, at first glance, doesn't seem to serve an evolutionary purpose.


Human babies start laughing at about three months old.

The uncertainty of human laughter and the ensuing debate over whether animals can experience the emotions humans do means that Panksepp and Burgdorf were blamed for committing the "sin of anthropomorphism," because subjective experiences are difficult to measure in both humans and animals. Their methodology was roundly criticized.

"It was hard to publish this kind of work, and it was ironic that the publication of our initial manuscript was impeded by prominent emotion researchers, some of whom take pains to deny that we can ever know whether animals have any emotional feelings," they wrote in 2003.

In the subsequent 13 years, that opinion -- that animals do not feel emotions akin to human emotions -- is steadily changing. Anthropomorphism is always a concern, but researchers increasingly can't deny that animals exhibit behavior that doesn't serve any evolutionary purpose -- like crows who slide down snowy hills for the apparent thrill of it and apes who enjoy being tickled (which tacks on another example that laughter might not be a uniquely human trait).

In his book, The Emotional Lives of Animals ecology and evolutionary biology professor Marc Bekoff writes:

"It's bad biology to argue against the existence of animal emotions ... Emotions have evolved as adaptations in numerous species, and they serve as a social glue to bond animals to one another. Emotions also catalyze and regulate a wide variety of social encounters among friends, lovers, and competitors, and they permit animals to protect themselves adaptively and flexibly using various behavior patterns in a wide variety of venues."

More researchers are proving that yes, rats do like to be tickled. In a 2012 study published in PLOS One researchers trained rats to press a lever in response to one sound tone, which meant they would get a food reward, and in response to another tone which meant they would get a little foot shock. Afterward, the rats would either be held or tickled. They measured the ultrasonic vocalizations of the rats -- those 50-kHz chirps -- and found that the noises in response to tickling were "positive emotions akin to human joy." These positive emotions, they argue, made the rats look forward to pushing that lever.

We might not yet have figured out what makes us laugh and if rats -- and other animals -- laugh. But hey: At least now we know rats are always down for a good tickling sesh.

MORE FROM INVERSE:

• 5 Facts About Pangolins That Prove They Are the Coolest
• 
  
• In the Trenches With the Undersea Drone SuBastian
• 
  
• The 5 Best Augmented Reality Apps That Aren't 'Pokemon GO'
• 
  
• Time to Talk About Global Cooling!
• 
  
• What Drives the Ancient Crap Collector?

Photos via Giphy (1, 2), Michael Kilner/Flickr

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science  

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Everybody Wants Some, Except Weed Smokers  
This article was originally posted on Inverse.



By Tanya Basu

The incentive-reward mechanism helps us get through the day. You stop slapping the snooze button on your alarm because you'd rather not get glares from your boss for being late. You slog through a workout because health. You enter the Hamilton lottery in hopes that today is the day your stubbornness will pay off. But motivation can be a delicate thing. New research seems to indicate that smoking weed can dull reward systems over time, slowing the roll of a critical feedback loop.

A study published Wednesday in JAMA Psychiatry suggests that potheads seem a bit slow on the uptake for a reason: They've ceased to want. Researchers followed 108 mostly male participants in their early 20s ("the prime age for marijuana use") and hooked up to an fMRI three times over a four year period. The participants were asked to play a pretty simple game: Clicking a button when a target appears on a screen. If they got the target, they could win either 20 cents or five bucks; they could also lose that amount, too.

What the researchers were focusing most heavily on in the scans was the nucleus accumbens, which neuroscientists figure is where reward activities take place. In particular, they were watching the moment of anticipation right before the marijuana smoker was about to either win or lose; chemically, a surge of excitement translated to a burst of dopamine, the infamous "pleasure" shot that infuses a human with warm and fuzzy feelings when they win something or feel happy. The science on dopamine is pretty clear: The more it floods your brain, the more Pavlovian you tend to be in repeating a behavior so you can get that same shot of giddiness.

But, oddly, marijuana users were sort of immune to the standard ways of psychological brain chemistry. The more they smoked, the less their nucleus accumbens fired up with dopamine. In other words, the more pot, the less they were excited by small rewards, and the more pot it seemed to require to get that same sense of ecstasy.



This study -- like many others looking at the still-mysterious effects of drugs on our noggins -- isn't exactly criticism-proof. Testing at three different times in four years might not be completely reflective of a regular pot smoker's brain activity, and it might be a bit much to imply that pot is a "gateway drug" to harder stuff; plenty of people are simply recreational marijuana smokers and stop at that. For being around as long as it has, pot is still a very confusing drug when it comes to how it affects the brain.

Still, it's worth noting these effects, particularly as pot becomes increasingly legalized and therefore more accessible to the average American. Studies have proven that marijuana has addictive properties and this study seems to demonstrate that it affects the brain. It also provides some insight into stoner thinking. Regular smokers who say they become less anxious when they toke up may be observing a breakage in the incentive-reward mechanism.

At the end of the day, smoking pot might not be as dangerous as, say, snorting cocaine. But there's reason to believe that limiting consumption is a good idea. It could spell the difference between getting that little spike of pleasure from finding a $5 bill on the street or walking straight past it.

MORE FROM INVERSE:
Vaping Marijuana Is Healthier Than Smoking It
Why Scientists Are Tickling Lab Rats
The Top 5 Wildlife Livestreams for People Stuck Indoors this Summer
The 8 Best Proxy Sites for Surfing the Web Anonymously
Cover Your iPhone Camera With More Than Tape


Photos via Getty Images / Christopher Furlong

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science  

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Wildlife And Fishing Gear Don't Go Together  
WARNING: Graphic photos below.

As a Wildlife Custodian I often encounter wildlife who have had a run in with discarded fishing gear.

I recently was on the receiving end of a Northern Map Turtle who had swallowed a fishing hook. This was my first experience with the actual fisherman bringing out an animal who had accidentally swallowed a hook.


Northern Map Turtle who swallowed a fishing hook

I full well realize that nobody has this happen on purpose, but most fishermen simply cut their line and move on when they hook a turtle. This action will often result in a slow death for the turtles involved.

However, this time the turtle came to us, but we were unable to reach the hook through the oral cavity, so we called on our vet to assist to surgically remove the hook.


x-ray of the map turtle

The surgery went well. The hook had perforated the esophagus and was removed through the side of the turtles neck. After several weeks of recovery with the help of pain medications and antibiotics the turtle was successfully returned to her natural habitat.

I would like to encourage all fishermen to not cut the line when you hook a turtle, but remove the hook if at all possible and if that is not an option than any wildlife rehab center will be more than happy to assist. It is of course important to use caution when handling turtles specifically Snapping Turtles can be a bit of an issue and should be handled with caution.

I would not recommend to try and remove a hook from a snapping turtle's mouth without anesthesia. For those cases it is best to contain the turtle in something like a plastic tote (with air holes) and transport to your local wildlife rehab facility.

Never pick up a turtle by its tail, that can do damage to the turtle's spine. It is best to pick up larger turtles with one hand underneath the turtles back end (much like you would pick up a tray of drinks) and put your other hand on top of the tail to keep it balanced on your hand. Some people also use the back of the carapace (top shell) to pick up a large turtle, but personally I find they are difficult to grip that way.

Whatever you do you hands should not be above and in front of a snapping turtle's hind legs. Their neck can reach a long way around and they are lightning fast. They are called snapping turtles for a reason. Also, be aware that the nails on their feet can be sharp and they will try to scratch you as well.

Waterfowl are often a victim of discarded fishing gear. We have had our fair share of birds come in with fishing-related injuries.


Canada goose with a fishing line injury


Canada Goose with a double hooked leg

Some of these types of injuries are painful for the animal, but easily resolved. Other types are not.


This Ring Billed Gull was not so lucky. He had an issue with a fishhook that cost him his life


Postmortem we discovered a fish hook embedded in his chest.

It is a fact that a lot of fishermen still leave remnants of fishing gear behind after they are done fishing. I can state this as factual because a short walk on the shores of the Grand River near where I live yields me a wealth of fishing gear.


Discared fishing line, sinkers and hooks found on a short walk along the Grand River

It is my hope that by bringing the issues to people's attention fishermen can be motivated to clean up after they are done fishing. This is truly a big problem for waterfowl and turtles alike.

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gaia  

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A Darker Shade Of Green  
The sustainable design movement often is tainted by overwrought egos.



On Monday, Architectural Record reported that Architecture for Humanity (AFH), the nonprofit founded in 1999 to address humanitarian crises through building, is being sued for mismanagement of funds. Last week, a court-appointed trustee filed a complaint alleging that the co-founders, Cameron Sinclair and Kate Stohr, and the ten-person board of directors acted with gross negligence by shirking their fiduciary duties from 2012 through 2014. The specific charges relate to misusing charitable donations earmarked for specific purposes. This is the latest in a string controversies, beginning with the co-founders departing in 2013 and the organization declaring bankruptcy last year.

As I wrote a decade ago, in a review of AFH's book, Design Like You Give A Damn, the organization's purpose and strategy always seemed misguided: "in focusing more on design than on the conditions that create a need for it, sometimes AFH overstates the role of building. The book's jacket claims, 'The greatest humanitarian challenge we face today is that of providing shelter.' The United Nations disagrees. Its Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), eight targets for the global community..., list the first priority of all of humanity to 'eliminate extreme poverty.' For the sixth of the world's population that is starving, access to food, medication, and especially clean water are the most urgent needs. Shelter, which isn't even mentioned in the MDGs, is a comparative luxury. After all, if buildings are a basic human necessity, how did we survive before the last five or ten thousand years?" Even the most egalitarian impulses of designers, it seems, are tainted by an over-inflated sense of our worth.

Starchitects are notorious for their "monumental egos," and their private behavior can be despicable. Early in my career, I worked for one of the world's most famous architects, and he routinely raged at his employees. Yet, the cliché of the black-cape-wearing architect isn't limited just to name-brand designers. In fact, entitlement and self-aggrandizement run rampant among architects. To some degree, this is to be expected in any field that prides itself on creativity and innovation. "Ego-fueled fisticuffs" long have defined Silicon Valley rivalries, for instance. The classic chicken-and-egg question: Does ego spur innovation, or does success inflate egos? Either way, the arrogance of architects no longer surprises me.

What does continue to surprise and sadden me is when I encounter such arrogance among the leaders of the design industry's more altruistic movements. Years ago, I individually interviewed dozens of the recognized pioneers of sustainable design, the movement to improve the environmental and social impact of buildings. At the time, I did not know most of them, yet many volunteered shockingly petty stories about each other. As recently as last year, one of the field's most influential proponents threatened the career of a young colleague of mine after she publically (and fairly) criticized one of his projects. At such moments, I'm embarrassed to be an architect.

In my experience, great leaders combine vision, conviction, communication, humility, and empathy. Design leaders often demonstrate the first three and all too frequently lack the other two. This is difficult enough to stomach with most architects, but it's unacceptable for those who claim to be promoting the public good. How can we respect the leader of a social movement who shows little respect for people?

The clash of personal ego and public interest holds us all back. Advocates for change in the design industry can go only so far without also changing how designers behave. Architects can set a new standard, and those of working toward improving the impact of design have an urgent responsibility to do so.

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gaia  

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Glowing Paul  

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A Look Back At Some Of The Most Iconic Protest Photos  
At their best, these photographs expose the tragic absurdity of power. Here are some of the iconic photographs that have, over decades, come to form the visual language of political protest.  
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London Sunset, Putney Brdge  

andyc246 posted a photo:

This was taken just as the sunset colours begun to emerge behind Putney bridge, silhouetting a London bus on its way across. Putney pier can just be glimpsed through the arch of the bridge. The pink and magenta reflections on the ripples whipped up by the strong wind were lovely. A very London scene

 
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Westminster Sunset  

Tracey Whitefoot posted a photo:

London

 
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ABOVE THE SKY  

jason Buckley. posted a photo:

WALKIE TALKIE BUILDING LONDON

 
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r0B0t: Take it to the bank boys!  
(Almost) Every time [Justin and Griffin McElroy] say "BOY" on Monster Factory. A fan highlights one of the best bits in a keystone of the MCU (McElroy Content Universe).

In other McElroy related developments, My Brother My Brother And Me is being developed into a series on streaming service Seeso. Lin-Manuel Miranda directly talked about MBMBAM's influence on Hamilton backstage at the Tonys. And they're doing commentary for 100 Foot Robot Golf. 
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r0B0t: Anki introduces tool that allows developers to hack its Cozmo A.I. robot - VentureBeat  

VentureBeat

Anki introduces tool that allows developers to hack its Cozmo A.I. robot VentureBeat Cozmo is a playful, intelligent robot with an essence of artificial intelligence. As VentureBeat's Dean Takahashi described it, it's “something like Eve the robot in Pixar's Wall-E animated film.” Anki cofounder and president Hanns Tappeiner explained ... Anki's AI-Powered Toy Robot Is Opening Cozmo Code To Anyone To UseiTech Post AI-Powered Robot Cozmo To Come with Easy-To-Use Development KitTop Tech News Anki Cozmo: AI toy robot gets open-source SDK for programming, hackingYIBADA English The Verge -NewsFactor Network all 29 news articles »

 
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r0B0t: Gunmen Targeted Police in Tennessee, Missouri and Georgia, Authorities Say - Wall Street Journal  

Wall Street Journal

Gunmen Targeted Police in Tennessee, Missouri and Georgia, Authorities Say Wall Street Journal After negotiating with Johnson for several hours, Dallas officers killed him using a bomb-disposal robot jury-rigged with explosives. In Valdosta, Ga., authorities said a man called 911 early Friday to report a car break-in, then ... John Bel Edwards ... and more »

 
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Pokemon Go Stirs Controversy For Lack Of Digital Privacy  

The new smartphone game, Pokemon Go, is stirring controversy for its lack of data privacy. But that isn't slowing down its growth.

 
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Millions Of Gamers Are Hooked On Pokemon Go  

Pokemon Go has become a smartphone gaming sensation, generating $1.6 million in daily revenue by one estimate and boosting the market value of Nintendo. NPR's Ari Shapiro talks to writer Glen Weldon about the hit game and the playing experience.

 
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Overworked Americans Aren't Taking The Vacation They've Earned  

And they're not unplugging from email and text messages when they do get away, an NPR poll finds. "So they're taking their stress along with them wherever they go," says a Harvard scientist.

 
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A Computer Binge-Watched TV And Learned To Predict What Happens Next  

Researchers fed a program 600 hours of videos and TV shows to see if it could learn about and predict human interactions — hugs, kisses, high-fives and handshakes. It was right nearly half the time.

 
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Pokemon Go: The Live Video Game Everyone Seems To Be Playing  

Pokemon Go is the latest game to use something called augmented reality which combines virtual and real worlds on a smartphone screen. Released only last week by Nintendo, it is a runaway success.

 
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Firms Are Buying, Sharing Your Online Info. What Can You Do About It?  

Every time you visit a website, companies you've never heard of are collecting data about you and selling or sharing it with other companies. You can opt out, but few consumers are aware of that.

 
technology  

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Chevron's Ted Boutrous Thoroughly Embarrassed Himself Last Week  

Ted Boutrous embarrassed himself in Huffington Post this week in an apparent attempt to "up the crazy" as the trial to seize Chevron's assets in Canada looms. It appears the "Big Lie" sickness of Donald Trump-ism continues to grow in America. The lawyer for Gibson Dunn, a firm known for its corporate attack dog efforts, has taken lying and slander to a new level. To Boutrous, giant fossil fuel corporations are the victims of legal attacks by environmental and human rights groups and the actual human rights violations or environmental destruction is either insignificant, or nonexistent in Ted's view. To top it off, Boutrous defender of Chevron worst global polluter ever is lecturing that "the ends don't justify the means." It's not a coincidence that Chevron will find itself in court once again in a matter of weeks trying to justify the unjustifiable - dumping 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into the Ecuadorian Amazon over the course of decades.

Boutrous has now tagged himself as the kind of lawyer who blames the rape victim for dressing the "wrong way". Or the kind of lawyer who blames the black man shot by police for being where he shouldn't have been and "looking like a threat." He has the audacity to blame the people Chevron deliberately poisoned by intentionally dumping billions of gallons of toxic waste in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Despite the fact that it is the largest oil-related disaster in history, which remains yet today in the form of almost 1,000 toxic waste pits, Boutrous claims there's "a lack of evidence."

To the families of the over 1,400 people who have already died of cancer in the Amazon Boutrous denies your suffering. To the indigenous communities wiped out by Chevron's operations (and Texaco) over decades, Boutrous never believed in you in the first place. To any environmental or human rights advocates who denounced the environmental "crime of the century" Boutrous says you are criminals.

For the record, here are but a few of the incontrovertible facts to which Texaco has already confessed and to which any non-corrupted lawyer would concede:

• 
  
• Texaco operated oil wells in the Ecuadorian Amazon and designed a system to dump all their toxic drilling waters into the local environment where 30,000 Ecuadorians lived.
• 
  
• From 1964 to 1992, Texaco dumped over 18 billion gallons of toxic waste into open air, unlined waste pits designed to send runoff into local waterways. This was done deliberately to save approximately $3 per barrel and increase profits.
• 
  
• Texaco estimated it would cost a little more than $4 million to line the pits and decided it was too expensive.
• 
  
• Texaco told its employees not to report spills in the Amazon, ordered its employees to destroy existing reports documenting oil spills and instructed local workers to dump the waste.
• 
  
• Texaco never apologized to a single person from the affected communities for its deliberate acts of pollution.
• 
  
• Texaco left in 1992 and signed a $40 million deal with the government of Ecuador to "clean up" a small portion of the pits (that agreement specified that it did not protect Texaco from any civil action).
• 
  

In fact, Chevron videos taken in 2005 and leaked by a whistleblower prove even the few pits Texaco claimed to have cleaned were still toxic years after the alleged "remediation".

Texaco argued for a decade in US Federal Court in New York that Ecuador was the proper venue for the case and agreed that it would honor the decisions of the Ecuadorian court system. However, on the first day of the new trial in Ecuador, Texaco insisted that the case should not be heard in Ecuador either.

Chevron's RICO trial specifically excluded any evidence of the contamination in Ecuador and in no way exonerated nor even suggested that Chevron/Texaco was not responsible for the contamination in Ecuador.

Chevron's key witness in its RICO case, disgraced ex-judge Alberto Guerra, received over $2 million from Chevron for his testimony, admitted to lying about alleged bribes from lawyers for the Ecuadorians, and admitted that he embellished his story to get Chevron to pay him more.

Forensic evidence obtained by analysts of the presiding judge's computer disprove any allegation of "ghost-writing" as the verdict was a document saved hundreds of times over a four month period and no external devices were attached (as Guerra claimed at one point).

In 2013, a US District Court found that Chevron had not shown that Amazon Watch had done anything wrong in relation to the Chevron litigation or that Amazon Watch had engaged in fraudulent conduct or furthered a conspiracy against Chevron. In an 11-page order, Judge Cousins quashed Chevron's attempts to open up Amazon Watch's files, and threatened sanctions against Gibson Dunn and Chevron if they reissued subpoenas unless they were "significantly narrower in scope to seek only highly relevant information and more carefully tailored to avoid infringing upon the organization's First Amendment rights."

None of this can be contested by Boutrous, no matter how much he may wish he could. And every single one of these facts are ones Chevron and Gibson Dunn hopes desperately that the public (and justices in Canada) will ignore or forget. Yet despite knowing them, and all those ethical guidelines Ted theoretically understands, he is willing to write that there's a "lack of evidence" against his client Chevron and the environmental NGOs asserting otherwise are criminals for doing so.

Like Chevron executives, who have spent billions to try to escape justice in Ecuador, Boutrous is impervious to shame. His firm has harassed people, threatened judges, bribed witnesses, falsified evidence (not the first, or second time), hidden information from the Ecuadorian court, and even admitted to opposing counsel in the U.S. that their motions were improper, yet filed them anyway. And it's within this context that Boutrous writes: "the ends don't justify the means."?!?

It's unclear which is a greater danger to our society, the ability for oil companies to intentionally and catastrophically pollute, or the willingness of large law firms like Gibson Dunn to cheat, lie and generally abuse the legal system in order to deny the existence of the continuing suffering of tens of thousands of people. Add to that the vilification and intimidation of anyone who dares to speak against them. Sounds like Donald Trump's ideal America to me.

Ted Boutrous is not an idiot, but he has demonstrated absolutely no moral compass whatsoever. In the fever to defend his client a company that admitted to the deliberate pollution in the first place he has gone completely off the deep end. And he has embarrassed himself in the process. That's probably why he (or his staff) have obsessively deleted every comment to his post on Huffington a delicious irony from a "First Amendment lawyer."

The notion that anyone would accept his premise when Chevron has lost every legal contest apart from Kaplan's (which is still under appeal, and was just handed another major blow by a recent SCOTUS decision about the use of RICO in such circumstances) is frankly preposterous.

No, we can't afford to sue Ted and Gibson Dunn for their acts of libel and intimidation, and they know it. The system of justice here completely favors the Chevrons of our society. That's why they are infuriated that the people of Ecuador actually persevered. Despite all Chevron and Gibson Dunn did to prevent it, they couldn't stop the $9.5 billion judgement against them. They won't be able to stop the action to enforce that verdict in Canada to seize Chevron's assets there, but Ted Boutrous and his buddies intend to get much richer trying.

Ted's post is a sign that the Chevron attack dogs are foaming at the mouth the closer we get to a trial in Canada (it begins in September). Last year, when the Supreme Court of Canada sided unanimously with the Ecuadorians to allow them to sue to enforce their verdict, it sent shock waves through Chevron's board room. The phone calls to Gibson Dunn have probably been non-stop ever since.

Ted Boutrous is using Huffington Post to spread more lies that Chevron hopes will sow more doubt about this case. "Perhaps there is no evidence in Ecuador after all." That's what they hope journalists or justices in Canada will think. Perhaps global warming is a hoax, too. "I read on the internet," says Donald Trump. That is the era we live in.

Anyone can appreciate the irony when Ted Boutrous calls Trump out for his racist comments about a judge while he dismisses Ecuador's entire judicial system, local communities and indigenous peoples as either too corrupt or too "unsophisticated" to make a just ruling based on the overwhelming evidence in the Amazon. Trump doesn't appear embarrassed, but Ted certainly has been.

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Factory Butte  

BLMUtah posted a photo:

Although Factory Butte is famous for its OHV areas, few realize that the area is also a popular site to view wildflowers in the spring when Factory Butte is in full bloom.

 
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Paul Paz y Miño: Chevron's Ted Boutrous Thoroughly Embarrassed Himself Last Week  
Ted Boutrous embarrassed himself in Huffington Post this week in an apparent attempt to "up the crazy" as the trial to seize Chevron's assets in Canad...

Read more: Chevron, Chevron Ecuador, Gibson Dunn & Crutcher, Theodore Boutrous, Corruption, Big Oil, Environment, Toxic Waste, Contamination, Injustice, Indigenous People, Ecuador, Pollution, Legal Fraud, Green News

 
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