Brent Nyitray
Fairlington Blade
Let the mutherfuker burn!
jnc4p
Kevin S. Willis
Michigoose
lmsinca
markinaustin
Arcanaut
novahockey
quarterback
ScottC
yellojktBusy day. Things messing up, meetings coming up and the most inopportune moment, etc. So, in short, I got nothing.
Here’s a picture of a dog.
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To help a brother out, a link to the economic year in graphs
Time chooses the Protestor as its Person of the Year.
And the abstract to a paper in Science about empathy in lab rats.
“Whereas human pro-social behavior is often driven by empathic concern for another, it is unclear whether nonprimate mammals experience a similar motivational state. To test for empathically motivated pro-social behavior in rodents, we placed a free rat in an arena with a cagemate trapped in a restrainer. After several sessions, the free rat learned to intentionally and quickly open the restrainer and free the cagemate. Rats did not open empty or object-containing restrainers. They freed cagemates even when social contact was prevented. When liberating a cagemate was pitted against chocolate contained within a second restrainer, rats opened both restrainers and typically shared the chocolate. Thus, rats behave pro-socially in response to a conspecific’s distress, providing strong evidence for biological roots of empathically motivated helping behavior.”
Empathy and Pro-Social Behavior in Rats
— Mike
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I am really pretty sure some of you will find this funny.
—ashot
Filed under: Uncategorized |
All Things in Moderation 
"…providing strong evidence for biological roots of empathically motivated helping behaviorI'm always stunned how human emotions are projected onto other species in experiments such as these.
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Thanx, Mike. I personally have no empathy for rats.Guess that proves I am not one.
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Just goes to show that even Lab Rats have hearts. . . 🙂
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Just goes to show that even Lab Rats have hearts. . . 🙂 But not Republicans.
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ashot:But not Republicans
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I hate rats, mice and centipedes. And everyone know Republicans don't have hearts, sheesh.
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Shhhhh. . . don't tell anyone, but this paratrooper has always been afraid of rats and spiders.And centipedes are just wrong on so many levels.
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We have hearts. It's just that we also have brains.
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Brains the size of rats, that's it. And now I have to go supervise the little guys next door who are cleaning up our horse trail…….lol. They're working, they must be Republicans also.
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I did admit, now that I come to think about it, that Scott has a heart.And if Scott has a heart, surely you do, too, qb! 😛
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ashot:#14 on that list sounds like several commenters on the PL!
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"US Democrats Consider Dropping Millionaire Tax"How can these guys be such impossibly bad negotiators? How can they do this to themselves month after month?On the flip side, how the GOP be so bad that they can't find a candidate to beat this guy?
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I'll see your millionaires tax and and raise you a pipeline.
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ashot, that WAS funny. Thanks.
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Concur with Mark. Ashot, that was very fun. I've seen all of them and I've been a few of them (The Concerned sounds very me).
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I'm always stunned how human emotions are projected onto other species in experiments such as these.Seems at least credible that human emotions are rooted in such basic instinctual behaviors (emotions are considered separate and even opposed to reason, after all). There have been cases of brain injury (or intentional separation of the hemispheres) where the person may not have control, or at least complete control, of certain parts of their body (or a given side of their body), and yet can explain involuntary reactions as reasoned behaviors done of their own free will. We may, indeed, be elevating our own emotional reactions upwards in our own self-explanation, rather than projecting them downwards. 😉
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On the flip side, how the GOP be so bad that they can't find a candidate to beat this guy?I think an economist might tell us that the incentives are all wrong to attract qualified people to the various positions. Maybe.
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" I'm always stunned how human emotions are projected onto other species in experiments such as these."Which emotions are not limited to humans, if any?
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Is nostalgia an emotion? I would posit that nostalgia is unique to humans.Other than that, I can't think of one off the top of my head.
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How could you tell if an animal were nostalgic, though?
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Hmmmmmm.Show it three pictures, one of something that you would expect it to be nostalgic about, and see if it looks longer at that one than the other two. I know that dogs and cats (at least, the ones I've owned) know what pictures are.
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BTW, Kevin, very cute dog picture!
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'Goose, apparently elephants visit their deceased family members, on regular pilgrimages to bone sites.
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I've met or been all the types of commenter on that list. It was brilliant. If you don't listen to Linda Holmes's Pop Culture Happy Hour Podcast, you should.
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Perhaps we are just an expansion of emotions all animals feel.
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I believe that emotions have their root in instinct. Even the simplest creatures can demonstrate aggressiveness, fear, desire and urgency. Thus, I suspect most animals experience very human-like emotions, because the roots are so similar. We have the benefit of a much more elaborate system of information sharing and introspection, so we may have a more articulate sense of what we are experiencing emotionally, and have a stronger context (depth of meaning, rooted in language, seems to play a very important role in memory, which will inform our processing of emotional experiences).
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What kevin said.
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The first mouse or two was cute. I even practiced catch and release. Thereafter, I became the Mousocutioner. I even made little marks on the traps signifying the number of kills. Sadly, all I succeeded in doing was killing off the stupid mice. I'd find a trap licked clean.The gloves came off. Strategically placed poison finally killed off the colony. I still like Remy, though.BB
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" We have the benefit of a much more elaborate system of information sharing and introspection, so we may have a more articulate sense of what we are experiencing emotionally, and have a stronger context (depth of meaning, rooted in language, seems to play a very important role in memory, which will inform our processing of emotional experiences)."Wish I could remember the source… I read something recently that dug into the evolutionary advantage of having strong emotional reactions & the species's advantage of having variation in emotional responses.
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