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Scientists Produce Fearless Mice
Dotnaught writes "According to New Scientist, a Rutgers University geneticist has found that turning off a specific gene for the protein stathmin makes mice fearless. The story speculates that this research might improve treatment for phobias. It does not mention obvious military applications for the discovery. As noted in this Naval Officer's guide for managing fatigue, the use of amphetamines to stay alert, followed by sedatives to sleep, has a long tradition. Genetic treatments may offer an alternative to pharmaceuticals."
These mice escape and breed in the wild. Enormous of fearless mice terrorize the world's cat population. It's not going to be pretty.
Whatever happened to the good old days of pumping soldiers full of angel dust to rid them of fear?
The non-military uses for such a treatment are pretty far-reaching. Would it be able to cure people that suffer anxiety attacks? Could children with night terrors be cured?
If the rats don't feel fear, do they also lose understanding of danger? That would be a pretty bad mutation.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
That was awesome.
My days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle...
Now scientist need to figure out how to make theese mice pilot planes.
of those poor elephants! Or ladies in the kitchen standing on a high chair!
Giving Methamphetamines to soldies to "stay alert" and to "strengthen confidence" has -sadly enough- a long tradition. As Wikipedia tells us even the Nazis spreaded the drug among their Wehrmacht. What's the point of a government saying "Stay away from drugs!" on the one hand and willingly giving it to soldiers on the other?
Seems alright, I quit military service a long time ago...
Regards
Stirz
They've done it now. We're soon going to have a demonic whorde of fearless mice taking down everything in their paths. Damn you, Science!
The easy part was getting the brain out, but the hard part was getting the brain out.
Looks like Isadore Klein beat them to the punch. He created a fearless mouse in 1942. http://www.toonopedia.com/mightym.htm
I thought you couldn't change someones genes 'on-the-fly' - it has to be done before they're born.
Doesn't this mean we'd be breeding our soliders? Opening up a whole can of worms there if that's the case.
(IANAS)
IMHO, there are much better ways of curing phobias than resorting to potential treatments based on genetics. It's much easier to imagine military and other subversive applications to motivate this kind of research. Imagine it billed as a "cure" to shell shock and other combat-related situations. While its definitely interesting that we now understand fear a little better, removing fear, or even tinkering with its inner workings, seems nothing short of asking for disaster. We have fear for a reason, and methink moderating it arbitrarily to within parameters that we specify will be more challenging than it is worth.
An old-timer with old-timey ideas.
Come on Mickey, are you a MAN or a MOUSE?
AAAAAAAAAGGHHHH!
More mice have been committing suicide by cat.
[ ]
...or just plain stupid?
Lemon curry???
I, for one, welcome our new rodent overlords.
Genetically engineered soliders? I think not.
MIGHTY MOUSE !
a new superhero is born
the use of amphetamines to stay alert, followed by sedatives to sleep,
Or vice versa.
So we got fear, now there are a few more emotions to get rid of and we can make Equilibrium come true. Now that's practical applicaton of science.
I'm looking for my stapler... It is a red Swingline stapler. "I'm gonna! Burn the building down!"
Three mice were sitting in a bar, each trying to impress the others with how tough they were.
The first one said, "When I see a mousetrap, I deliberately set it off, bench press the bar fifty times, then snack on the cheese."
The second one, not to be outdone, said, "Yeah? Well, every morning when I get out of bed, I stir in some cream and rat poison in my coffee. It gives me a good buzz that really wakes me up and gets me going."
They both look at the third mouse who, after a few seconds, gets up and says, "I don't have time for this bullshit. I've got to go home and fuck the cat."
He's The Best
He's The Greatest
He's The Greatest Secret Agent In The World!
He's The Ace - He's Amazing...
He's the Strongest... He's The Quickest.... He's The Best!
Till the day when they have their own children, these second generation child mice reject their parents just like the previous generation rejected their parents.
Leaving killing the child mice as the only solution, before they become too grownup and strong to stop.
Thus putting an end to the whole experiment, as the original generation dies when they finally turn on each other in boredom.
An electorate that's willing to fight for what little remains of democracy, and representatives unafraid to do what's right - and for this it cannot come too soon.
(Please, no comments about a possible Ben/Socrates ticket.)
I don't think that an army of fearless soldiers would be that effektive.
Imagine hordes of these running fearless into machinegun fire... Very effective, I presume....
Fear often prevents us from doing really stupid things. So far this worked good along evolution...
Crivens! I kicked meself in me own heid!
like this.
How we know is more important than what we know.
You could almost call them....Mighty mice....
The two certainly do not equate.
F.E.A.R isn't *that* good anyway...
Crivens! I kicked meself in me own heid!
Then again if there's no fear, there may also be no concept of 'safe' either, so when the treatment is eased off everything may fall back to how it was beforehand.
I would agree, except that, having adjusted to the "no-fear" brain chemistry, a patient would have no method of coping with their fears as normal people do, so they'd be in even more fear - of everything, rational or not - than a normal person.
My 'type this word' for this post is "atrocity", which I think is very appropriate...
people nowadays like to talk about fear in ideological and propagandistic terms, but fear keeps you alive. it keeps you from wandering into traffic or picking fights with random people. if this were ever applied to humans, you wouldn't have superhuman heroic fighters for the military, you'd have guys shooting themselves with their own guns and jumping off roofs... why not, when you're not afraid of anything, including death
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
What about a laser mounted on the backs of these mice?
Oh, never mind
Grundgesetz * 23. Mai 1949 - 30. November 2007 - http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/
Bus? I don't fear no stinkin' bus!
What is the difference between "Rage" and "No Fear"? If you don't fear punishment or even death, what's to stop you from becoming a megalomaniacal criminal ready to kill and steal?
I can't wait until the entire British Isle is teeming with people infected with "Fearless." And to think it's all going to start with the wrong group of animal rights activists letting these supermice out.
Now we are in a position to finally answer the question: If superman and mighty mouse fought, who would win?
that is outraged by this? this is stupid. i don't like to engage in slippery slope arguments but this is obscene.
Thanks for the editorialistic introduction to my Slashdot science articles.
That's because there is no military applications. You don't want the soldiers to become fearless, because if they do, they might say: "This war is wrong. I used to be too afraid to do anything about it, but now I suddenly feel fearless, and will get the heck away from here !" Basically, fearless soldiers will refuse to obey when given orders that they think are wrong, and cannot be forced to obey by fear of punishment.
What you want is soldiers that are more afraid of their commanding officers than the enemy; that way they'll follow orders.
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
...welcome our new mouse overlords. :P
....have a large stock of cheese, for our new....
But how will we keep the local systems in line?
Why the hell shouldn't they be fearless, when they are now regenerating too? Goddammit, we have to stop this madness before we are overrun by marauding fearless regenerating mice. The irony is that we need many, many more fearful, even irrationally fearful peopl to avert this impending horror. Scream with me people! "The Mice are coming! The Mice are coming!"
"But I trust in the people's capacity for reflection, rage and rebellion." -Oscar Olivera
Not all was good; the potential drug seemed to have some side effects.
Although the mice became fearless, their mobility was reduced due to the vast increase in the size of their testicles, which also seemed to have taken on a shiny metallic tinge. The researchers were also sceptical about the military application for covert operations based on the loud clanking noise that resulted when the mice moved.
The view was horrible and the smell was even worse; Julie severely regretted becoming a proctologist.
Now these mice will set traps for humans!
"Hey check this out, I'm not in the least afraid anymore. Hmm, I wonder what it feels like to plough an airplane into the ground on full afterburner. Whee, fast! Hello mr cornfield. Ooh, a scarecrow. My, that ground sure is big."
Fearless until you throw the boy mice in a room full of SEXY! lady mice. Then they get all cowardly again, back to running on the treadmill.
hmmm, complex, do we now get to see George Bush and Tony Blair tell us drugs are ok as long as you're one of the good guys? Maybe the crackheads who live down the road from me in that smashed up house are actually ultra elite commandos keeping me safe from the Axis of Evil Unknown But They Are Really There Terrorists which are all around us these days? maybe they're a bit like the the rangers in Lord of the Rings, I think they are outcasts but actually their curious ways and p*ssing in our hedge is just a cover while they protect us innocent little people from the evil threat which will surely destroy civilisation if it wasn't for them?
...isn't enough to knock most people out, especially in 15 minutes.
Does this have any impact on USB mice?
fear is biological, not ideological
fear is about avoiding predators, not what kind of partisan brainwashed victim you are, either from the right or the left
but don't let me stating the obvious stop you from spewing more of your braindead propaganda against more of their braindead propaganda
right or left, i'm so sick of partisans
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Yeah, that sounds reasonable.
Biological systems tend to reuse proteins for a lot of things, and when you're dealing with something as complicated as fear, you're certainly going to have some crossover.
For example, imagine that this protein is involved in memory. Turn off the protein and you are unable to remember things for more than 5 minutes. This is going to manifest itself as fear would, in that you won't have any inhibition due to past experience, which would be similar to being fearless. Fearless like a goldfish.
Then you get into the whole cortex thing(i.e. not in mice, but in humans). Having a cortex almost certainly moves the center of the brain which handles fear around in space.
This is the stuff media latch on. You know in the 1960s this guy Delgados discovered the TAMING CENTRE OF THE BRAIN? Oh yea what it did was it made animals dizzy. Cause you see, dizzy animals tend to sit down all confused, and therefore appear tame.
/has no Slashdot account because he rarely visits it //doing spatial learning research with Fragile-X gene knockout mice, so has somewhat of a clue what he's rambling about
There was also a discover of a very special part of the brain. If you destroyed it (now known as the prefrontal cortex), people would become completely docile. Oh right, that was the LOBOTOMY. Anyone remember those good old days?
Anyone with half a clue will tell you that the amygdala does not "control" fear. It's idiotic to ever believe there is some type of "center" for ANY complex process. The visual cortex at the back of your brain, the one you learned about in highschool? The only thing it looks at is contrasting edges, and thats about it. It is not the visual center. Don't get me wrong, the amygdala is crucial for fear. But if you're afraid of snakes, and someone took out your eyes, and there was a snake in front of you, you wouldn't be afraid either. Aha, the visual system must be involved in phobias! *snort*
Occam's Razor/Morgan's Cannon: The simplest explanation is the most plausible.
Phobias are complex cognitive processes. A "fear response" in a mouse is most simply reduced anxiety or increased stress, very basic physiological processes.
This is a protein modification. But there is an easily accessible drug that also reduces "fear". It's called alcohol (alcohol-fed mice also display lowered stress in novel situations, and are more likely to take risks). But we all know what alcohol really does right? It makes you stupid. Stupid people don't learn not to touch a hot stove after burning themselves. Stupid people have no fear.
Uncle Joe is that you?
Can't wait till I can get rid of my fear/disgust of earwigs! Those fuckers are nasty!
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
If we are immune to fear, then there is nothing they can do to scare us.
For those still unconvinced, the drug should be taken in combination with this other new drug, one that suppresses critical thinking, another totally unnecessary brain function.
Yours Truly,
Your Government
About forty years ago, a neighbour's child was damaged by a rare adverse reaction to a vaccination (cannot remember which one). One of the most striking affects was that the child became completely without fear of anything. By this, I do not mean antisocial in any way. He was a really nice kid but had lost the capacity to feel fear. The consensus was that this was very dangerous.
'nuff said.
Fear is the path to the Dark Side! Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering...
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
this mutation would have dominated the species milions of years ago.
In a world of cats, fear is the superior evolutionary trait.
Fight Frist Psoting!
Browse Slashdot with 'Newest First'!
Shouldn't they really be working on making the elephants fearless?
Fearless mice? Well, that's nothing new. They have been around since 1995!
Pinky: Gee, Brain, what are we going to do tonight?
Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!
w00t
It was merely a DNA exchange with the fearless rats in the White House.
Nothing to see here, move along...
Reminds me of Datura. Not the chamanic herbal drug with days lasting effects, the imaginary US army nerve gas in Coin Locker Babies (great book from Ryû Murakami)
In the book, whoever is exposed to the gas enters an hyper-agressive state, and starts attacking anyone they see, until they eventually die.
But actually, real life datura has somewhat related effects. If you drink it (with tea), or smoke it (even worse), it'll make you lose any sense of fear, and you might very well kill yourself without even trying (or at least hurt yourself bad and without even noticing it). That's why it's recommended to have someone look after you if you are to trip under datura (someone really patient, with lots of time and little need for sleep as datura's effects last anywhere from 12 to 48 hours IIRC).
Anything you do can get you slashdotted, including nothing.
You're thinking of the Cowardly Lion in The Wizard of Oz.
;)
Don't remember where Batman fitted in though...
Except, Krazy is deeply in love with Ignatz Mouse. Ignatz, meanwhile, finds his primary purpose in life is to throw bricks at Krazy's head. Krazy Kat interprets the hurling of said bricks as thoughtful tokens of Ignatz's affections. The dog loves Krazy, and so spends his time trying to put Ignatz in jail.
Way to go Rutgers - thank God their researchers don't suck as much as the football team.
1) Fearless mice (meeces as Jinx said)
2) ????????
3) PROFIT.
RU class of '99
If you put a fearless mouse in the wild, it will die like anything else that lacks a healthy sense of which dangers are worth avoiding.
Fear is an emotion that rules our lives from moment to moment. Losing fear doesn't mean losing sanity, actually is usually means the opposite.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
No more Sith Lords since we know it is fear which leads to the Dark Side.
And so, what happened to him? Don't leave us hanging.
We apologize for the inconvenience.
If you could weaponise it, you could confuse the enemy ... or create an army of suicide bombers.
Ok, so they found a clever way to turn down fear.
... scary.
I wonder if they can use this knowledge to do the opposite: turn fear way up? How might that be used & abused? Say around election time?
The idea is
bow down to our fearless mice overloads (and may I strongly suggest you do the same).
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
I can see it now. A woman goes to have an abortion, the doctors keep the fetus.
The process is performed on the youngest of a strata, and the strongest live. These become wards of the state, and are given an Episode 2 cloned experience, teaching them all about tactics and weaponry, playing immersive vr for their childhood. Sounds great, huh? Who would complain. But the net effect is a Fearless, well honed assault team. Quite the weapon.
He's the greatest
He's fantastic
Where ever there is danger, he'll be there.
He's the ace,
He's amazin.
He's the strongest, he's the quickest, he's the best.
Dangermouse, Dangermouse, Dangermouse
Ah, kids' TV at its finest.
But you don't understand: GOD made mice with the fear gene 6000 years ago. Now these evil scientists are tinkering with GOD's intelligent design and they will unleash DAEMONS. :-/
Being a military person myself, what you want is confidence, and intelligence. In the Army they want people that can work effectively as an individual and in a team. Fear is there, but you are drilled and trained with such repetition to be able to operate with the fear, because it's so ingrained into what you are supposed to do. The biggest flaw in any soldier is being indecisive. That will get you killed faster than a bad choice. Fear is something that drives you to learn from your mistakes, and make sure you can make a choice, and hopefully the right one.
Yes, I said it.
Is surprises me that this has been mentioned a couple of times already, that people truly think there is no military application.
First, we are going to set aside the fact that as other have pointed out lack of fear does NOT mean your stupid. This may be gene therapy now but it will lead to drugs that help manage fear and that is where you would get payoff even if being totally fearless was bad in a combat situation.
When fear gets to strong, it gets in the way of making rational choices. So while you might not want a totally fearless solider all the time, there are plenty of times when being able to control the level of fear would be vastly useful.
I mod everyone down who says "I'll get modded down for this." I hate to disappoint.
It certainly puts the old proverb of mouse and men in a new perspective.
The scientist where probably called scared mice by their bullies at school you know.
This is my sig, show me yours
I last saw him about 20 years ago. He was in his early 20s. His life at the time was unexceptional. He had a low paying job and a nice girlfriend. The "no fear" side effect was still there.
Apparently, in spite of having no fear of anything, he had a sense of self preservation. He never (that I know of) did anything to threaten his continued existence.
Fear in life is like salt in the food.
Too much and it will make the food inedible.
Too little will make the food bland and tasteless.
The trick is not to be paralyzed from fear, but use it for good. To stay alive and avoid situations which are clearly not in the best interest of the people involved, securing your child, etc.
There is nothing wrong with fear, on the contrary, if you feel fear, then you're still alive. How about that!
http://www.debunkingskeptics.com/
Didn't Apple already develop things like this?
"They're laboratory mice, their fears have been sliced..."
because fear is intelligent
i'm not talking about the propagandistic, politicized fear
i'm talking about the simple basic fear of predators and death: it keeps you alive
it IS intelligence
so for you to talk about a "fearless, intelligent person" is like talking about a "wet, dry person"
a fearless intelligent person is a contradiction, an impossibility
you're just not being intellectually honest about what fear really is when you talk about it
you're probably thinking about fear in the propagandistic, politicized ways people always talk about it nowadays, but that kind of fear is a derivative meaning of what fear really is
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
>to test learned fear, the mice were exposed to a loud sound >followed by an electric shock from the floor >below them. A day later, normal mice froze when the sound was >played again. Stathmin-lacking mice barely >reacted to the sound at all.
And so the new rodent species will be named in taxonomy as
Mus Musculus Abugraibus Gitmoensis
They are called lemmings...
When all is said and done, nothing changes...
Oh my, oh my, and here I was thinking, that since the Nuremberg process "Do it, don't question" was not a defense at all. And every year I am reminded that nobody learnt from it.
Intelligence is not fear.
You don't need to be afraid of moving traffic to know that dodging cars doing 60mph is a really, fucking bad idea...
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to emerge the world!
Unleash Daemons? I'm sorry, but I've already got plenty of those running on my Linux box, and they're not killing me or anything ...
I'M NOT ANGRY!
If the mouse is daring enough, some cats do not know what to do with it. It has to do with the way they are programmed to hunt. The same pretty much goes for wolves too: If the prey faces them, they will be put off for a moment trying to decide what to do. Once the prey starts running, they act again as they are programmed too: Follow it and kill it.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
I'd love a mouse like this! I'd name him Johan, and let him loose in cages of other mice just to see how long it would be before they all died. Except Johan, of course.
In the end, Johan would only kill me, though. I guess that was part of the plan from the start.
But you don't understand: mice RANDOMLY formed from some green goo with the fear gene 600000000 years ago. Now these PREISTS^H^H^H^H^H^H^H scientists are tinkering with DARWINS design and they will unleash a PATENT. :-/
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
This is MY galaxy...go find your OWN!
This seems like a profoundly unwise idea. And unless they can reactivate the gene at decommissioning, troops who survive their fearlessness better report to the Soylent Green Division for final debriefing. (And why wouldn't they? They're fearless.)
A mouse!
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
ph33r
printf($randomline(sigs.txt) \n "-- "$randomline(authors.txt));
-- myself
Ah so you've seen DOOM The Movie too. I feel for you man.
Have you metaroderated recently?
caught one this morning in a glue trap (next time I'll use one of those swifter methods involving a spring trap). I took precautions and distance to avoid getting a bite from that thing. It was scared as could be and bit the lid of a can I used to carry it to the garbage can. The problem it seems is that if that mouse was fearless (or for that matter a human would be temporarily so for military purpose) it wouldn't bite or fight back. It would happily just go along with whatever happens to them. I'm sorry to say but fear is part of our fight or flight mecanism and without it we'd be darwin award nominees withing far too little time.
In the sequel novel to "DO Androids Dream of Electric Sheep" it was explained that the original Roy Batty on whom the replicant was based had a genetic mutation that prevented him from experiencing fear, thus making him an excellent soldier and assassin. Even though it was a pretty lousy book, I doubt I'm the only /.er that's read it.
What happened in the movie Jacob's ladder?...
...that it's actually a mouse, and not a baby kangaroo. It's less painful that way.
That gives a new meaning to the phrase "meek as a mouse"
Manojar - pronounced like Manager
Alcohol makes you fearless, too, but it also makes you make a complete ass of yourself.
Wee, sleeket, stalwart, non-tim'rous beastie,
O, what panic's in my breastie!
Thou need na start tward me sae hasty,
Wi' bickering brattle!
I wadna be laith to rin fae thee,
Wi' yer murd'ring pattle!
After the bard - http://www.electricscotland.com/burns/mouse.html
"Genetic treatments may offer an alternative to pharmaceuticals." So a company has two options. Either a (theoretically and best case) one time genetic therapy which will raise the wrath of a public who leaned everything they know about science from bad movies. Or slightly less effective pills targeting the same mechanism, but which can be sold again and again to a person throughout their lives. I think the whole customer for life deal has a bit more appeal.
Everything will be taken away from you.
So they don't avoid predators, and they don't learn from their mistakes. These do not sound like hyperalert mouse "soldiers" whose qualities one would expect to win a war with owls and cats.
The original article, and the researchers quoted in it, talk about potential applications for anxiety disorders. Sounds a lot more reasonable, trying to help people for whom fear is debilitating.
(Our /. poster would probably be among those who think evolution naturally results in more and more extreme traits over time: bigger brains, faster rabbits, stronger people. Fearless, fast-running rabbits run into a clearing and get eaten.)
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
...a Rutgers University geneticist...
Rutgers? Didn't we read about them loosing three plague mice into the wild a few months back?
I don't know what these Rutgers scientists are up to, but I think we can all agree that "Fearless Wild Plague Rodents" would be an excellent name for a rock and roll band.
"Given the pace of technology, I propose we leave math to the machines and go play outside." -- Calvin
Obviously it can't involve using the treatment on our own soldiers as that would be incredibly counterproductive. You want your soldiers to have a quick and instinctive reaction to things that could harm them in the battlefield, not a slow one. Assuming you are able to control it, fear is your friend in situations where your life is in danger (and if you can't control it, I don't think a job as a soldier was a good career choice in the first place).
Would it involve somehow feeding this drug to enemy soldiers? That would make them more likely to become suicide bombers and take out your own soldiers.
The only thing I can think of would be to reverse this process and make enemy soldiers more afraid and thus easier to force into a surrender (notice I could be making a joke about the French here but I am controlling myself). But if you have enough access to the enemies to sneak the drug into their system, why not just kill or capture them outright?
Mathematics is made of 50 percent formulas, 50 percent proofs, and 50 percent imagination.
In a related development, the Guardians of the Universe have announced that they've solved the problem of finding suitable Green Lantern candidates.
Daredevil's press representative, though, had no comment.
Vincent J. Murphy
Spandex Justice
Are we genetically enhanced mice or MEN?!
Chewbacon
The Bible is like Wikipedia: written by a bunch of people and verifiable by questionable sources.
Here I come to save the day!
Amusing series in a lot of ways although, as aforementionned, the science is not top-rate.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
Regarding the age-old question: Are you a mouse or a man? You now want to be a mouse - they are fearless.
Will someone please think of the Elephants?!
Fractured Element
Unless I've missed something, no one has said this yet... I for one welcome our mice overlords!
When I was a teen, I had a ball python. I bred mice to keep a steady food supply. The snake had graduated from eating pinkies, and was just starting on the small babies who would now run around. I put one in... later, so did my brother. The next morning I woke up to find my snake dead, with its eyes eaten out, and most of the scales on its head gone. I must have had some fearless mice.
I have heard since then (from a few different sources), that when mice are bred for food, they become more agressive for some reason. I was never told exactly why, but just that alot of people had noticed the pattern.
Getzen
Does anyone else see a Stephen King book in this? I suppose if he's too busy I could use his standard formula and make his book for him, for a small fee. Hmm, who do we put in the movie?
Have you heard about the Hooters application process? They hand the girls a bra and say "Fill this out."
I've read several stories about parasites that affect the behavior of their host. The host's behavior is changed in a way that increases the likelihood that it will be eaten by a predator, perpetuating the life-cycle of the parasite. Dicrocoelium dendriticum causes ants to climb to the tops of blades of grass, waiting to be eaten by the next convenient herbivore.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
like the mouse is retarded! Not Courageous? So... If you are stupid and don't learn you are brave? NO. How the heck do they dieerentiate between brave and retarded.
I'd say they made the mouse retarded, not brave!
I agree with that. Or, if they do keep their instincts, and become super warrior mice, then the application to the military doesn't hold either. Because of do you maintain order in an Army if the soldier has totally no fear of the consequences of not obeying ?
Mouse 1: "Brain, what are going to do tonight?"
Mouse 2: "Try and take over the world!"
I don't think turning off fear in general is ever a good idea. I find it hard to believe this could ever be used to treat human phobias, since those are isolated fears of things that are often irrational. But most fears that we have every day are completely rational and actually critical to survival. The fear of falling down the stairs, for example. And the fear of a crash on the interstate, which causes us to look before we do it.
RP
Rational thinking is by order of magnitudes slower than emotional thinking. Even more, the whole process of thinking is based on emotions - read the paper on emotional decisions. In a nutshell, we make emotional decisions first and *then* we rationalize them. If you remove the fear from the sets of emotions, you will seriously change the way the given person thinks. Getting rid of a fear is a bad, *bad* thing.
Yes, but where are we going to get 40 gallons of cheez-whiz, a ladder, and 1500 gypsy moths?!?
blah blah blah
I for one hail our new rodent overloards! Someone needs to get rid of the old ones though..
#1) Fear is good, its a natural and it keeps people alive. You don't want soldiers that will run in the face of battle, but you certainly don't want sucidle morons either (I wouldn't want him protecting my ass anyway). As for pilots, do you really want to put someone with no fear at the wheel of a 30-100 Million dollar machine? Controling fear is good, having none is bad.
#2) I fail to see the connection with soldiers taking drugs to stay awake or fall asleep as to do with fear. Unless they have a fear of sleeping, or staying awake (how messed up would that phobia be!?)
We're a big bag of complex chemical equillibria and messy neural wiring. We give names like "love" and "fear" to aspects of the subjective experience of existing this way, but they're seldom precise enough to be something you can switch on and off. You're bound to get either more than you intend or less than you intend, or both.
Fear would seem to be a good candidate for a neurobiologically switchable emotion, but even fear is more complex than it seems at first glance.
I saw a photo in some book I read on the psychology of emotions that showed a truck tipping over. The truck was loaded with maybe thirty soccer fans returning from a game, and all that rowdy weight caused the thing to overbalance. The photo was taken just as the truck was approaching 45 degrees, and the people on the top were leaping to safety. What was interesting about the photo was the peoples' faces. The people leaping to safety had no look of fear or emotion at all -- just intense concentration. The driver, however is obviously terrified.
The point is that there is arousal in response to danger, and there is fear. Arousal in the presence of danger is not fear: fear is specifically an emotional reaction to helplessness in the presence of danger. It's evolution's way of say, "If you're going to do nothing about this situation, then you'd better do it really, really unobtrusively."
There is already a method for controlling and eliminating fear in a soldier. It's called "training". You ingrain the right response in a danger situation into him so he can act automatically. He may be afraid before hand and traumatized afterward, but you want him aroused and as close to fearless as possible at the moment of truth.
Because of the imprecision of language, I suspect a pill that turns off "fear" would actually make a soldier's training less effective. The physiological and emotional response to danger which is not fear, or at least not exactly fear, curiously doesn't have a distinct name. Clearly this unnamed state is a kind of emotional state -- one in which reactions are automatic and information is extensively filtered down to that which is paradigmatically most useful for survival. Perhaps "fear" is a reasonable umbrella term for all kinds of arousal reactions to danger, but we have to distinguish between being "frightened" or "scared" on one hand and being "terrified" or "petrified".
But whatever the word is, I expect the condition of reacting to danger is on the whole more beneficial to the warrior than it is detrimental to a warrior. And, as you say, if the soldier does not react in an emotional way to danger, then the way he does react is probably unpredictable. An ideal pill from a military standpoint would narrowly block the "petrification" reflex, without altering any of the other subjective aspects of fear.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
... and for that extra helping of protein hunt for insects and in the case of rats even small birds and other mice. Both rats and mice also eat unhatched eggs. They don't have fangs like dogs and cats, but anybody ever bitten by a rat will tell you they have razor sharp incisors and a powerful jaw and the bite hurts plenty.
However... to set the record straight, like most other mammals a rat will
only attack a human when cornered or provoked. I suggest you do not pickup
or otherwise try to pet the rat you find out in the streets but they are
actually some of the cutest mammals in existance and they
make excellent pets.
See the pages of the Rat & Mice Club of America http://www.rmca.org/ if you're interested.
Praise be to allah! Who needs science to get rid of fear when religion can do it much easier!
Not necessarily. Darwinian evolution doesn't necessarily dictate that the best mutation wins out. It generally suggests that the mutation best adapted to the species' circumstances will survive, but really, anything that works well enough to allow further breeding will still continue to exist. That's why we have all sorts of absurd animals in nature right alongside the magnificent ones, and why in our own species various forms of genetic disease and handicap continue (although for the latter, our own social evolution and co-dependency has something to do with it too).
was heard to utter "Andale! Andale! Ariba! Ariba! Eh-hah!" then zipped into the next room, followed by a loud crash and a voice yelling "Sufferin succoutash!"
"You'll get nothing, and you'll like it!"
Vikings used to eat amanita muscaria before going to battle. It gave them spiritual courage, fearlessness and anger. Not to be mistaken by magic mushrooms (psylocibe content).
It is a strong psychedelic in bigger quantities and you can actually get it online as it is considered legal and grows all over the norht hemisphere.
Disclaimer:
No I am not a biologist, not a Viking nor am I any kind of substance abuser. And don't run and pick some now (just by googling for a pic), they look very similar to other shrooms that will make you drop dead in an instant.
All sides used some form of speed during WWII, not just for soldiers but also for cicilian denfense workers working long shifts. In fact in the US if you were working long hours in the oil fields or mine and refinerys you often could get a Rx from the company doctor for amphetmines. That finally got phased out, but I think that is where the meth epidemic started. People could no longer get a legal source and so this created a market for bath tub crank.
putting the 'B' in LGBTQ+
This removed "fearless" gene might instead be an I.Q. gene.
Dude, if you don't know the difference between doing drugs and killing people, I want what your smoking!
Hmmm. Then again, maybe not.
I guess they would lose all fear of sunburn... the great of scourge of Viking warriors.
The Litany against Fear is a pretty good guide: Fear is the mind-killer. Fear wipes the mind of rational thought. "Sometimes," you might say, "this is a good thing. Sometimes you need to act quickly." But I ask you, in our day and age, how often do those times come up, and how often is wiping your mind of rational thought useful? I'd argue that the drastic measures fear employs are rarely needed. And, if fear were eliminated, would be needed even less.
Besides, you can train yourself to act decisively without fear and with all of your mental facilities intact. Various martial arts do this well, as do other disciplines that teach self awareness. All it takes is mindfullness and awareness of one's surroundings.
Well, fear is the mind killer.
There really IS a club for everything, isn't there?
+++ATH0
That's some fearless Mighty Mouse you've got there. Sounds more like it just deadens their responses in general rather than makes them fearless.
exterminate! extermiNATE! EXTERMINATE!
and pass the cheese
This has horror story written all over it, imagine unleashing fearless rats in New York :). I know their intentions are good but it seems a little scary to me
There is a reason why mice carry the fear gene - it keeps them out of danger. There were probably "fearless" mice thousands of years ago but while they were being "fearless" and getting killed the other mice lived to breed.
"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." - Shepard Book Quoting Malcolm Reynolds
welcome our cheese-eating overlords
Well, the cat came out
and they had a little spat
and the cat ate up on the mouse.
And the moral of the story is...
"You can't drink Guiness on the house!"
Does this mean that a new breed of mice will not be concerned with Who Moved Their Cheese?
In fact, Nazis were so disappointed with effects of amphetamines that they developed a whole new drug called Pervitin. Wehrmacht soldiers were issued with Pervitin and its intended use was to inhibit pain. But it also made the soldiers nearly mad. They thought they were invulnerable and they thinking was not straight. Harry Thuerk described this in his book "Die Stunde der toten Augen" (Hour of The Dead Eyes in english, probably). Metamphetamines were used by RAF and USAF pilots on long flights over Germany to keep them awake. The flights took about 8--12 hours so it was quite necessary.
Wow, yet another statement made by the clueless about the military. I'm shocked. SHOCKED I say.
Of the >200 soldiers I know, a solid 80% of which have seen combat duty in various places; Somalia, Croatia, Kuwait, Iraq, etc. not a single one has ever been exposed to any "illicit" drug besides morphine and its synthetic derivatives in the course of treating physical trauma (it's called anaethesia).
I will never stop being in awe over the stupid things people come up with and believe about something as transparent as the US Army.
The question remains what is a phobia and why would you want to cure it. From casual observation it would appear that most phobias (spiders, open spaces, closed spaces, heights) and associated conditions such as vertigo are left behind evolutionary traits.
We don't live in holes because people are claustrophobic, we don't fall off cliffs because people get vertigo, we don't wonder off into the desert because of agoraphobia etc....
Anyhow, except in extram cases (where oversion therapy already works) why would you want to cure a phobia?
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
He's the greatest! He's fantastic! Wherever there is danger, he'll be there! He's the ace! He's amazing! He's the strongest, he's the quickest, he's the best! Dangermouse! He's terrific! He's magnifique! He's the greatest secret agent in the world! Dangermouse - powerhouse! He's the fastest, he's the bravest, he's the best! Back to the top Dangermouse! (Amazing!) Dangermouse! (Astounding!!) Dangermouse!
...employ these new super-mice in the Army and have the Army show up on Bin Laden's doorstep, dump a crate of these wall-infesting; head-mounted, laser-cannon-sporting mice to crawl through the caves of the middle east. If equipped with small beacons, would be able to radio back to "home base" (your laptop or other system) and show you where they're going topographically, thus rendering a 3-D model of what a cave might look like on the inside. I love ADHD...
-- Game Developers: Stop porting badly-textured games from crappy console systems!
Fearless soldiers are useless. Fear is healthy and important to survival. If you aren't afraid you do stupid things...like blow yourself up in a market to attack the "enemy".
Fearless mice in the wild would all be killed immediately because they'd walk into trouble and, jokes aside, they'd still be tiny helpless mice.
Fear is not a negative accident of evolution: it serves a specific purpose. Just enough Fear is one of the things evolution selects *for*.
It's actually a rule of thumb among animal breeders that fear is usually correlated with intelligence. If you want to breed a smarter dog or horse, for example, you have to be aware that your animals are also going to become more panicky and "high-strung".
Indeed, part of discipline would be a very of consequences should you ever step out of line. In the military, discipline is an important thing. Won't help much when you fearless soldier shoots his CO in the head because of an arguement over whether his shoes were dressy enough...
Naw, no way....it's impossible. When you consider it as simple matter of weight ratios........
Now should you considered doing this with white rabbits....now you got a real problem on your hands.........
this unnamed state is a kind of emotional state -- one in which reactions are automatic and information is extensively filtered down to that which is paradigmatically most useful for survival...
If you've ever been in a dangerous situation, like a car accident,
or just taking a tumble off a mountain bike,
and your awareness gets so hightened that everything seems to be moving in slow motion,
what is that called?
The Slow-Motion effect seems to make the world move slowly while you are think as quickly as possible - 'How the hell do I get out of this!?!'
Now, if they had a drug that boosted awareness like that for four to six hours,
without leaving the person Drain Bramaged for life,
that would be a useful drug for Combat, Flight, Sports, Recreation (the co-ed type), even for medical operations and people studying for final exams.
I imagine that 'SloMo' drug users would need some training to get the most benefit out of their hyper-awareness, instead of just zoning out for hours that would feel like weeks of time to them...
Rather than simply changing somebody's genes to cure a phobia, being able to study what this gene does (which protiens does it enable or inhibit?) could lead to a better understanding of the physiological (rather than psychological) component of phobias.
"Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire." -- William Butler Yeats
In any case, I'd be pretty surprised if this science hasn't already been examined up the wazooo and applied somewhere. --One interesting thing about the big fast world today is that the same science keeps getting re-done by different departments and re-announced as new.
Imagine if researchers spent less time patenting, copyrighting and otherwise working under the veil of secrecy and spent more energy making research openly and easily available for anybody who wanted to access it?
Knowledge in this world might accelerate exponentially!
Couldn't have that, now, could we? Such a paradigm would prevent people from being so easily manipulated for fun and profit.
-FL
I have to wonder if in fact it normalized his fear reaction, rather than removing it... or if maybe it was just a turning point in the kid's development that was attributed to a "vaccine reaction" but in fact was no such thing. ("Vaccine reaction" has become blamed for every sort of problem, but in my observation is at most a trigger for an existing problem, but not itself the cause.)
See my post above where I mutter about how normal predators (that's us humans) have rational caution based on experience, rather than the unreasoning "panic over every little thing" of prey animals.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Because how do you maintain order in an Army if the soldier has totally no fear of the consequences of not obeying ?
Start a eugenics war? Control them with drugs?
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Releasing fearless mice into the wild, at least around my house, is going to result mostly in fat cats. None of my cats seem to rely on their prey being afraid of them. Mostly they rely on their prey being slower than them, or at least less attentive. Could we leave this drug around for the local rabbits? If they stop fearing my cats, I'm pretty sure that there will be a lot fewer rabbits around to eat my garden.
Easy Online Role Playing Campaign Management
Ohhh, maybe they'll bring back the Rachael Leigh Cook series Fearless. As far as I know, only a pilot was produced, and the show was not picked up.
:-| have a day
O RLY mouse!
Nah that was Itchy and Scratchy.
Honestly, that cat dashes when he sees Itchy.
I don't get all the +5 posts saying we'd have soldiers shooting themselves in the face and flying planes into the ground for kicks, the only people I can see doing this are the ones whom are predisposed to suicide and have now lost their fear of death. that doesn't mean every tom-dick-and-harry is going to start signing up for suicide missions.
I'm sure there are many situations where comrades are killed because someone choked when they should be firing, or firing randomly because they're so afraid they can't aim properly. as long as this "enhancement" didn't affect the logical thinking of the person, I'm sure this would be beneficial to soldiers: help them keep their heads clear when in high stress situations..
Rise up in the cafeteria and STAB them with your plastic forks!
I'm not sure if anyone else has considered this but, if you allow a genetically modified specimen to breed with ones in the wild and this gene is passed on to their offspring, you have instant population control. Think of it. How many rodents hide when a hawk flies over. Not this offspring. How many animals run for cover it sees a car coming? Not this offspring. The effects this could have on a species' population is incredible.
Now, imagine the effects it could have on preditory animals! Suddenly lion, tiger and bear attacks are through the roof! Covert operations could suddenly drop on engineered animals into areas where they are free to breed with pack animals which reside close to humans. Imagine the effect this could have on countries which have large monkey populations and engineered monkies were introduced! They could seriously effect every aspect of human life and culture there. Imagine the amount of food that would be stolen! Imagine the human/primate conflicts! Remember, many primates are pack/heard animals with strict social structures. Imagine a pack of monkies attacking people for their food and living space!
Seriously, this has the potential to become a VERY subvertive technology!
The toxoplasmodium parasite already does this to rodents. As a part of its lifecycle it needs to get from a mouse into a cat. It manages to perform this by modifying the mouse's brain to no longer be afraid of the scent of a cat and to perform certain actions (e.g. don't worry about staying in the dark parts of the grain silo...) that increase the probability that a cat will end up eating the rodent. This allows the parasite to move on to its next host.
The neurological effects of this parasite are also why pregnant women should not scoop the litter box, the parasite leaves the cat via its dung and if it gets inhaled by a pregnant woman it can cause neurological problems for the fetus (the woman's immune system can handle the parasite, but the fetus does not have a strong enough immune system to kill the parasite.)
Annyone want to bet that what these researches have discovered is the chemical pathway that allows toxoplasmodium gondii to accomplish this neat neurological trick?
"A partisan is a member of a irregular military force formed to oppose control of an area by a foreign power or by an army of occupation."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partisan_(military)
I don't know if having fearless soldiers is a good thing in the age of machine guns. Just look at WWI to see what the results would be.
"Why, my man, I am ashamed of you, dodging that way. They couldn't hit an elephant at this distance."
- General John Sedgwick
(Killed by a sharpshooter at that distance, near Spotsylvania, 1864)
It is by the juice of the coffee bean that thoughts acquire speed, the teeth acquire stains. The stains become a warning
You have an odd sense of what makes things "cute" and "excellent pets". Primary carrier of the plaugue = not cute / not excellent pet, for example. :) (yeah, I know it waas the fleas. So what?)
"it does not mention obvious military applications for the discovery"
that's just what we need, crazy soldier who dont know when to duck when they are fired upon.....that's one sure way to deplete an army.
heh
Tell us, is it the fear of what the enemy will do to you, or the fear of what the general will do to you that keeps you out of the military?
Stop Global Warming!
Just say no to irreversible processes!
I wonder if this could be used to induce fear? Maybe spray some fear in gas form in a movie theater or something to make it more scary. I think being fearless isn't something to wish for, why would people go to horror movies unless they enjoyed being scared?
Right... but let's go further: if you're fearless, you might just say "f... you" to the general and don't to battle, because you don't feel like it, and you're not affraid of the consequences of your act: not only punishment, but also your country being dishonored by losing the war, its being invaded, your family being killed by the invaders... just because you can't feel any fear. If you're fearless, actually, you have no reason to go to war ever !
Ok, when can we get this for our politicians and leaders???
Mouse (aka muad'dib): I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little-death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain.
Cat: [burp]
Fearless mice are nothing, call me when they start mutating the worms.
Also - what do you suppose Blobmouse thinks of all this? Some mice get all the good mutations..
It's a /. discussion, of a scientific topic, where the vast majority of respondants get it!
Seriously, it's nice to see how many of the posters actually understand that removing fear is severely maladaptive.
It does not mention obvious military applications for the discovery.
Hordes of fearless mice attacking our enemies? With lasers on their heads perhaps?
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
and they shall know no fear....
do they still get cancer?
At my house, the cats are afraid to even go outside when little mockingbirds are getting ready to leave the nest. The parents dive bomb them (the cats) over and over again, until the cats are reduced to cowering under bushes. Once, though, my younger cat reared up and grabbed one of the mockingbirds (I forced her to let it go, though).
Sean
this mutation would have dominated the species milions of years ago.
And, mice wouldn't have eyes placed so far back on their faces.
Just looking at the placement of eyes on an animal tells quite a lot about whether or not that animal spends much of it's time fearfully watching for something that wants to eat it.
This is not a dream, not a dream...we are transmitting from the year 1-9-9-9.
My little Microsoft Intellimouse fearlessly clicks where few other mice dare to click. But now my mouse is undergoing a serious identity crisis thanks to these silly scientists...
This sig donated to Pater. Long live
The article cites two examples as evidence of fearless mice. The first example is the affected mice venturing to the center of their cage, presumably with no regard for their safety. The second example is the lack of Pavlovian conditioning in the affected mice (basically, they don't learn). Why make the assumption that bravado is, in fact, the result of the experiment? One could instead assume even more plausible effects, such as disorentation, nerve damage (numbness), and mental retardation.
AWAAAAAAAY
Scientists have already able to remove fear from humans, ever see the crocodlie hunter? How do you think he got that way? Just another crazy Austrailian? I think not!
Mice Apply To Green Lantern Corps
Laboratory Mice (Whose Genes Have Been Spliced) Try (And Fail) To Take Over World
Did I groce you out there? Good. So you have chosen to hate little
(cute!) furry mammals of the species Rattus Norvegicus and Rattus Rattus
just because a parasite common to both man and rat spread a deadly
disease to its hosts. (BTW... Millions of innocent, cute and cuddly
little rats died too because of Yestinia Pestis).
Enter the bird flu and it's potential to kill hundreds of millions
of people on this planet. If and when the bird flu knocks one or
two magnitudes off our population count on this planet... are you
going vilify birds just as viciously?
Here... let me groce you out a little more...
Did you know that rats have the same kind of rough tounge like cats have??
I got a bunch of them for pets and one of
them regularily licks my lips and I lick him back. Me and my little
pal both have good immune systems and exercise them regularily.
"The research found that mice lacking an active gene for the protein stathmin are not only more courageous, but are also slower to learn fear responses to pain-associated stimuli, says geneticist Gleb Shumyatsky, at Rutgers University in New Jersey, US."
Makes them more "courageous"? Sounds to me like it just makes them stupid.
We seldom regret saying too little but often regret saying too much.
Eek. I am sooo afraid.
If a baby duck is a "duckling," why would anyone want to eat "dumplings?"
LOL!
'The rat,' said O'Brien, still addressing his invisible audience, 'although a rodent, is carnivorous. You are aware of that. You will have heard of the things that happen in the poor quarters of this town. In some streets a woman dare not leave her baby alone in the house, even for five minutes. The rats are certain to attack it. Within quite a small time they will strip it to the bones. They also attack sick or dying people. They show astonishing intelligence in knowing when a human being is helpless.'
- "1984", by George Orwell
Do you have *any* idea how badly you can fsck yourself up with stuff like that??
(And besides, wine is cheaper I bet.)
C|N>K
True genius is grasping a situation like a peice of fruit, and peircing it just right so that it drains dry.
"but they are actually some of the cutest mammals in existance and they
make excellent pets."
He is exactly right on this point, however let me relate and anecdote.
My wife and I bought a rat as a pet. We named it Fuzzmeister. We adored our little rat, but we did not know whether or not is was a boy or a girl ratling.
UNTIL ONE DAY... Fuzzmeister grew testicles the size of large grapes overnight! I kid you not.
You have no idea how embarrasing it is to have your pet rat come bounding out of the bedroom, his gigantic nutsack bouncing off the hardwood floors with a muffled thwacking noise, right in front of friends, family, and guests. There is really no way to put it into words.
The moral of this story is, if you are going to buy one of these exceedingly cute and adorable furry woodland creatures for a pet, GET A GIRL!
When the only tool you have is a claw hammer every problem starts to look like the back of someone's skull.
There is fnord no way to fnord accomplish what you say. And fnord if there is such fnord a thing, it's years fnord away. It definitely fnord has not been around and fnord in public use for fnord quite some time now.
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
O, anger might work. I'm not at all certain that fearlessness would make one a pacifist. But a warrior isn't a soldier, and would be more likely to attack his sergeant before he ever got to the front than to be effective. Specialist groups that acted alone might want to self-medicate with this occasionally...but even then I'm not all that sure it would be a good (effective) idea.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
You might have to take my word for it, but I am one of the most successful clinical therapists in the UK and have worked for a decade eliminating (as opposed to repressing) clients' fears as well as my own.
Your assertions match my experience. The AC makes a partially relevant point in that a genetic alteration might knock out other more useful functions. However, fear is not necessary for protection. An obvious analogy is that a robot could be programmed to protect itself without fear.
A transition to being fearless might lead to unforseen responses from others as this story from my own life should illustrate. I decided to eliminate as much of my anxiety around people (especially strangers) as possible.
That weekend I got into 3 fights! Whereas my anxiety had previously compelled me to avoid situations where I'd push others' aggression buttons (usually around women), I then had to learn how to first communicate to those aggressive males that there was no point trying to intimidate me.
I'll be impressed when they develop fearless gerbils.
The criteria used to define and test for behavioral signs of "fearfulness" need to be reexamined in this case. One of the most common physiological deficits found in genetically altered mice is deafness. Even normal wild type mice cannot hear the human voice.
Is Fuzzmeister your only rat...? If so, he needs at least one other rat for company, badly. You and your s.o. are not company enough, he needs someone he can really "squeak to" and that is another rat. I am not trying to be a wise-ass, it's just that I have worked with rats for half of my life. I would suggest (especially if fuzz is younger than 1.5 years) you get him castrated. him. That way... he wont exhibit dominant behavior once his hormones start hitting him. Don't take it out on him or get rid of him just because he bit you. Get him castrated and he will after four to six weeks get back to normal. Get him company, either a neutered female (not neutered if you also keep a snake) or another castrated male. He needs it.
Maybe they will actually rule the world!