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Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

nature.com

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Re: Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

#171

Post by mattmcknight »

rkangel wrote: post #126
buu700 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't buy the argument/implication that it's somehow hypocritical to oppose something while actively benefiting from it, as long as one is upfront about that fact. For example, say that we have genuinely useful medical information as a result of Unit 731 experiments and similar crimes (which may or may not be the case; I have no idea). There's no contradiction if one person supports using those existing results to…

> because the personal sacrifice would only be worth it to me if it came attached to a systemic change This is the reason why. You may prefer the world to be a certain way, but you aren't willing to make any sacrifice to make it be a particular way, so it appears that you don't actually care about an opinion that you are espousing. People who don't eat meat have a net effect on a reduced demand for meat, reducing the…

Demand for meat is elastic. If vegetarians don't eat it the price goes down, so people can afford it more often, so the number of cattle doesn't necessarily drop.

Re: Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

#172

Post by calinet6 »

ComputerGuru wrote: post #55
Declanomous wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In college we used to joke that animal behavior should be called animal misbehavior. We literally had one member of our lab group that could work with the mice and get sensible results. Neither of the guys could get any data that made sense, one of the women owned a cat and none of the results she had made any sense, and the fourth person (a woman) had no problem. I'm not sure if anybody suspected that rats reacted d…

I just wanted to add another anecdote (because the plural of anecdote is, as we all know, data) that your profess isn’t the only one. I’ve heard a few similar stories about guys not being allowed to enter the rodent living chambers besides an initial, introductory visit in the past.

This is really interesting. Clearly they're trying to control for sensitive variables that make little sense even to them, and yet they're still using rodents as subjects and publishing studies likely without mention of these oddities. Not saying everyone is doing it wrong, but wow.

Re: Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

#173

Post by timthelion »

chippy wrote: post #143
Taniwha wrote: post #3

Before anyone who didn't actually read the link goes off at it - this is a peer reviewed, repeated study - mice react to drugs differently depending on the sex of the researcher, don't in a fume hood, do always in a fume hood with a human male's t-shirt. It potentially plays havoc with ALL past experiments with rodents ...

I did read the article. I didn't see that it was peer reviewed nor a repeated study, scientifically speaking. The last few paragraphs also give some (typical) scientific distance on the rhetoric that it will revolutionise ALL past rat experiments. It's still worth a read though. What I found: * It is a science story about findings presented at a meeting. The story is published in Nature, which does do very prestigiou…

I don't think that peer review is a very good metric in this case. Those peers could lose their jobs if rodent research is proven to be unscientific. Requiring research on the scientific merits of rodent research to be peer reviewed is like asking the plumber's union to write the building code. In many American municipalities, the code really is written by the plumbers, and the plumbers write in that water pipes must be copper, just because copper cannot be installed by a non-professional. I don't see why rodent researchers would not do the same type of corrupt and anti-truth tactic for their own professional protection.

Re: Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

#174

Post by carussell »

nezzle wrote: post #85
legohead wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rodent research is a horrible testing method. This video explains it well: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FHl0nIdbiLA

Yes, it's terrible. Make sure none of the following list apply to you or anyone you care for. >If you’ve ever taken antibiotics, had a vaccine, a blood transfusion, dialysis, an organ transplant, chemotherapy, bypass surgery or joint replacement, you have benefited from animal testing and research. In fact, practically every drug, treatment, medical device, diagnostic tool or cure we have today was developed with the…

You seem to have responded to the parent comment as if he or she was making an appeal on the grounds of ethics of animal testing. (And for some reason, people have engaged with you on this, as if that's what's going on.)

But the linked video isn't about that at all. It's about the pitfalls of using rodents for testing and trying to extrapolate meaningful conclusions from the results. In other words, an argument that is squarely on topic with regard to the original article. Or in other words further, that using rodents is "a horrible testing method"―to repeat what the original commenter wrote before you derailed the thread.

Your commenting as if this discussion is about the ethics of animal testing and the comments of you and those who've responded (including the one I'm writing now!) have been—and are contributing further—to a massive waste of effort and attention.

Re: Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

#175

Post by agarden »

evincarofautumn wrote: post #60
cm2012 wrote: post #20

This reminds me of Feynman's story of the researcher who eliminated possible variables in rat experiments one by one, to find a surprising result (EDIT: To find that rats didn't need smell, spatial relationships, taste, or vision to find the cheese - the sound of the floor was enough) https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/02/the_rat_experi...

I suppose humans tend to underuse, or undertrain, their senses, so we fail to consider the possibility that other animals might be taking advantage of their senses in different ways. In elementary school, I used to listen to the sounds of people’s pencils scratching on the desk, and could accurately determine what they were writing, especially if my head was near the desk and I knew what their handwriting looked like…

That's fascinating. Reminds me of Daniel Kish, who is totally blind but navigates freely by echo location. It seems that is something humans -- at least blind ones -- are generally capable of if they work at it.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daniel_Kish

https://www.npr.org/programs/invisibilia/378577902/how-to-be...

Re: Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

#176

Post by felipemnoa »

colehasson wrote: post #74
mayank wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Inadequate controls = attempting to measure fine effects (gender normalized animal behavior) using crude methods (rat study).

Accuracy or precision. Pick one?

>>Accuracy or precision

Do they have different meaning to you? They are the same thing unless there is some scientific meaning that makes them different of which I'm not aware. i.e. Theory in Science means a different thing than what it means to a layman person.

Re: Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

#177

Post by vlehto »

evincarofautumn wrote: post #60
cm2012 wrote: post #20

This reminds me of Feynman's story of the researcher who eliminated possible variables in rat experiments one by one, to find a surprising result (EDIT: To find that rats didn't need smell, spatial relationships, taste, or vision to find the cheese - the sound of the floor was enough) https://www.realclearscience.com/blog/2014/02/the_rat_experi...

I suppose humans tend to underuse, or undertrain, their senses, so we fail to consider the possibility that other animals might be taking advantage of their senses in different ways. In elementary school, I used to listen to the sounds of people’s pencils scratching on the desk, and could accurately determine what they were writing, especially if my head was near the desk and I knew what their handwriting looked like…

I used to hear transistors very clearly. One of the things I knew as a kid from anther room or sometimes even from outside was if someone had their TV on. The noise was so high pitched that I didn't even consider it a noise. I just knew and didn't think much about it.

One weird memory is that I remember detecting objects in silent and dark room at home if they were like 10cm from my head. Even with eyes closed. I'm not sure if it's real or kids magical thinking. But it could have been very high pitched/ambient noise echoing from surfaces.

Re: Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

#178

Post by jrcii »

Declanomous wrote: post #9
Taniwha wrote: post #3

Before anyone who didn't actually read the link goes off at it - this is a peer reviewed, repeated study - mice react to drugs differently depending on the sex of the researcher, don't in a fume hood, do always in a fume hood with a human male's t-shirt. It potentially plays havoc with ALL past experiments with rodents ...

In college we used to joke that animal behavior should be called animal misbehavior. We literally had one member of our lab group that could work with the mice and get sensible results. Neither of the guys could get any data that made sense, one of the women owned a cat and none of the results she had made any sense, and the fourth person (a woman) had no problem. I'm not sure if anybody suspected that rats reacted d…

We should see what would happen to their oxygen consumption if one of the guys identified as a female, because that means they're female, right? That's what NPR and the San Francisco liberals who run this website told me to think.

Re: Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

#179

Post by autokad »

Declanomous wrote: post #9
Taniwha wrote: post #3

Before anyone who didn't actually read the link goes off at it - this is a peer reviewed, repeated study - mice react to drugs differently depending on the sex of the researcher, don't in a fume hood, do always in a fume hood with a human male's t-shirt. It potentially plays havoc with ALL past experiments with rodents ...

In college we used to joke that animal behavior should be called animal misbehavior. We literally had one member of our lab group that could work with the mice and get sensible results. Neither of the guys could get any data that made sense, one of the women owned a cat and none of the results she had made any sense, and the fourth person (a woman) had no problem. I'm not sure if anybody suspected that rats reacted d…

interesting stuff, hope this was all documented in the papers derived from those experiments

Re: Ketamine lifts rodents' mood only if administered by male researchers

#180

Post by gnajob »

felipemnoa wrote: post #176
colehasson wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Accuracy or precision. Pick one?

>>Accuracy or precision Do they have different meaning to you? They are the same thing unless there is some scientific meaning that makes them different of which I'm not aware. i.e. Theory in Science means a different thing than what it means to a layman person.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accuracy_and_precision

TL;DR: https://phidgets.files.wordpress.com/2014/05/precision-accur...

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