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Depressed Hamsters Help Researchers
Ant wrote to mention an ABC News article indicating that hampsters feel the same effects during the winter months as humans do. Known as Seasonal Affective Disorder (S.A.D.), winter-related depression affects up to 20 percent of Americans. From the article: "For example, if the animals spend more time hovering near the walls of their containers, rather than at the center, it's believed they feel more anxious. If they decline to slurp up tempting offers of sugar water, scientists take it as a sign of depression. Another test involves placing the animals in water and seeing if they swim or simply give up and float. Hamsters don't sink apparently, but float in water. 'The sooner they give up in the water, the more depressed they are,' Pyter said. 'If you give them an antidepressant they don't give up as quickly.'"
There is no "P". Dear god. After all those years of that fucking hampsterdance crap, people would've learnt that that's the wrong way to spell it.
If they decline to slurp up tempting offers of sugar water, scientists take it as a sign of depression.
The depression diet plan? Someone could make a fortune out of the book rights.
To summarise the summary of the summary: people are a problem. ~ h2g2
Hamsters don't sink apparently, but float in water.
These are some exciting results!
You learn something new every day. With results like these, how far away can self-replicating autonomous nanobots be?
Karma: Chameleon (comes and goes)
Exercise? Eat well? Get away? This article has no purpose to insult us geeks. But I did leave the best for last:
Those russian hamsters are absolutely adorable - IMO one of the best pets. I have two Roborovskii russian hamsters and they are the best hamsters we've ever had. They never bite and are so amazingly playful.
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http://images.google.co.uk/images?q=roborovskii&i
The only problem with all these studies with species that can't communicate is that there's more than one explanation for observed behaviour. But one always appears to attach an explanation that supports what one wants to find. How do you know that a hamster hovering near the walls is feeling anxiety? Or not drinking the water is depression?
WTF is a hampster?
Everytime you look at porn a devil gets their horns.
Assuming that other critters feel emotions the same way we do is foolish.
For instance, one of the symptoms of depression is sleeping too much. Based on that, we can conclude that bears suffer from extreme depression during the winter. After all, they do nothing but sleep.
Thats all well and good but did anyone stop to ask the hamster's how _they_ felt about it?
"WTF is a hampster?"
You throw a dirty hamster into one of those.
"Another test involves placing the animals in water and seeing if they swim or simply give up and float. Hamsters don't sink apparently, but float in water."
That's not the test to see if a hamster is depressed, it's the test to see if the hamster is a witch.
Let's see... cage up some hamsters, deprive them of natural light, natural surroundings, and buddies, give them an artificial sucrose-laden diet, see how they get depressed, give them drugs to make them happy?
And then suggest that these results could apply to people? Brave New World, anyone?
Drugs. will. not. fix. you.
Get out of your cage, get into the open, make better relationships, find a job that respects you, stop moving home every couple of years, start talking to your family not shouting at them, eat decent food instead of that sugar-laden "lo-fat" junk you're stuffing your face with, stop watching TV, cut down on the booze, and the religion, and for baby jesus' sake, stop taking artificial drugs.
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if their entire lives weren't just a science experiment
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
According to current theories most people who suffer from SAD do so because they don't respond to artifical light as if it were natural light (so producing higher levels or melatonine). Which you would of course know had you read the article.
People today aren't any happier. Gayer, maybe
Talk about going to the place where the light never shine
But yeah the study does kind of suck. Could it be possible the hamster is depressed about constantly being dropped in a bucket? Would depress me.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
A depressed hamster is suffering from a condition known as SAD? Shoot him full of speed and throw him in the river and he makes like a furry outboard engine?
I nominate thhe discoverers of these critical scientific facts for an award.....
Another test involves placing the animals in water and seeing if they swim or simply give up and float.
Wait... I think I'm working for these guys...
I must be a Hampster... Hamster... Hempster???
Place nail here >+
Isn't this old news? And it so makes me remember the depressed hampsters from the early 1990s.
I can easily see that being relatively sedentary in the winter cuold be advantageous from a survival standpoint. Who says you have to be perky all the time?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
I am the only one sick of trite/simplistic criticisms of scientific studies based on mainstream news articles? Maybe try to read between the lines rather than attack something based on what is most likely a simplification or omission for the sake of a mainstream audience.
"Hamster psychiatry is a pseudoscience," Tom Criuse told host Matt Lauer, later saying: "You don't know the history of rodent psychiatry. I do."
:-P
Sorry, couldn't help it. I haven't taken my vitamins today.
Adolfo
No I was talking about that fact that people in the old days got very little light in the form candles during the long winter nights.
Geez, I thought the mice were running everything... now the hamsters are getting into the act!
The revolution will NOT be televised.
I, for one, welcome our new depressed overlords.
Americans (meaning USians) don't even live that far north (with the exception of Alaskians).
Up here at the 59th parallel (Stockholm) we're used to darkness!
Now I got depressed.
To compensate for the darker days, I keep my present freind Franklin the Hamster under a lamp all the time except when I sleep (he's by my bed) and is definitely seems to be keeping him "up."
Favorite treats are eggs and flower petals.
I'm sure the hamster would go on paddling and thrashing in the water
if they applied electrical current to the poor animal. However, I am
sure after a day or two of this treatment they would have one seriously
depressed animal on their hands. The way I see it the water test is
worth shit.
Hamsters are not rats and they are as I know sulky creatures
to begin with and loners at heart meaning they don't have a lot of social
interaction with their fellow hamsters aside from mating and killing each
other off for territory. Maybe it is well enough that they do this kind of
sensory deprivation experimentation with hamsters and not rats but you know it
might be I come of sounding like a hypocrite but some of the behavorial science
experiments on animals really upsets me and at the same time I do cancer research.
The way I see it however, most mammals need an environment and peers to interact
with, same species and human and if they don't get it they like every other
mammal just shrivel up and die. To top things off, the same kind of people doing
the research on hamsters compared the brain wave of prisoners in solitary confinement
on the day the prisoner entered the prison and three weeks after. I read all told there
was a tremendous reduction of overall cerebral activity.
Okay... I'll close before I start a rant on what a scummy low-life species Homo Sapiens
Sapiens is.
Rosenthal is hopeful that studies, like those with the hamsters at OSU, may help yield more effective drugs for those most affected by SAD...
It it about developing "more effective drugs". These studies are sponsored by drugs companies.
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Why do witches burn?
Because their made of wood?
That's right! Now, what else may you do with wood?
Build a bridge!
Yes, but could you not also build a bridge out of stone?
Hmm... good point.
Tell me: does wood sink in water?
No! It floats!
Tell me... what else floats, apart from wood?
A hamster?
Correct!
So, logically, if she weighs the same as a hamster... she's made of wood...? And therefore... a witch? A witch! Burn her, burn her!
still no cure for cancer
Whether or not this is true, I know I'd pay good money for an mpg of that. (how much Xanax does it require to get a hamster to hover?)
Am I part of the core demographic for Swedish Fish?
It's obvious from the headline that the researchers are just looking for a cute, cuddly way of curing their SADness...
It's Seasonal Attitude Disorder. Attitude. Not Affective.
Hamsters are nocturnal and primarily found in the desert, which gets quite cold at night. By all rights, shouldn't they be more active come wintertime?
When I am king, you will be first against the wall
With your opinion which is of no consequence at all
Researchers also discovered that cats, when used as outboard engines, suffer from a syndrome called Mental-Aggressive Disorder. Strapped to a skateboard and pushed down a ramp, they exhibit signs of Rushing Adrenaline Disease. Those who survived were found to be capable of making pictures with Computer Aided Drafting, even though the structures they drew were Beyond Average Disasters.
Acronyms like this cause my Perverse Aversion to Internet News on Science. That's why I read Slashdot.
Don't use the Troll mod just because you disagree with me.
What depresses me is Greenwich Mean Time - if the UK could have Central European Time it wouldn't be going dark as I write this (3.45pm). I don't mind if it's dark until 9am; I go to work in the dark as it is and at weekends I'm probably not outdoors at that time. Apparently the Scots (being closer to the Arctic Circle) don't like the idea because their mere 5 hours of daylight would be at the wrong time, or something.
When I am king, you will be first against the wall.
... are you talking about?
You put me in a bucket of water. Oh, that's nice. You could have at least made it warm water, but no. Oh, what's the point? I suppose I'll just lay here and drown. Hope that will make you feel good, drowning a poor hamster. Even if you pull me out of the bucket all I have to look forward to is running in a stupid wheel. I run and run and run but never get anywhere. And all I ever get to eat are pellets and water. Boy, there's a five star menu. It's all so pointless....
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
...hamsters help depressed researchers? :(
Prescriptive grammar:linguistics
My only thought is, "Depressed Hamster Behavior" would be a good name for a band.
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
I ran over a Hamster once. It was very depressed...
"Drugs. will. not. fix. you."
It's unwise to rely on them exclusively, but drugs can help quite a bit with depression.
I rarely criticize things I don't care about.
First, the rate of usage is about 100 per 1000 people, in the US.
Second, anti-depressants do not prevent suicide and in some cases appear to even increase suicide rates.
Third, anti-depressants are a major money earner for drugs companies, who continously need to develop new drugs as older ones become commoditized.
That is what this study is about... setting the stage for new anti-SAD drugs. This is big pharma marketing.
What's the point here? Perhaps that a huge majority of people who take anti-depressants are actually being abused. I hardly think this is a radical statement: it's just valium all over again.
For many people, their drug is their problem.
My list of cures basically comes down to "get a life" and although I've every faith that drugs can solve some problems, they should be the last solution, not the first.
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So what's the point exactly ? "Buy more drugs and be a happy productive citizen" ?
OK I'm not being fair. The article also recommends light therapy.
In other news: People with their monitor set at full brightness found less susceptible to Seasonal Affective Disorder.
AC
Your participation in our experiment is greatly appreciated.
Like many of nature's snacks, they are crepuscular.
This MUST be why my hamster Huego never did anything but sit in his room all day watching T.V. and eating twinkies. I always knew he was S.A.D but no one would believe me....
THE SUN, IT BUUURNS!
:)
Seriously though, I am more likely to be depressed on days when it is sunny out. Overcast skies / rain brighten me up.
I call it Reverse SAD.
Need help treating your acne? Come here!
I wonder where bunnies fit on the health plan?
Nothing is inexplicable; only unexplained -Tom Baker, Doctor Who
Someone call Letterman.
I don't think I'm gonna do it Hamster Style anymore.
It's true no man is an island, but if you take a bunch of dead guys and tie 'em together, they make a good raft.
I am picturing a hamster running on its little exercise wheel just stopping and thinking to itself "Oh what's the use? It seems like I run and I run and I run but I never seem to get anywhere."
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
Hamsters don't sink apparently, but float in water.
i was just about to patent my new technology of unsinkable battle ships made out of hamsters.
Now that's just good science. In my youth, I seem to remember my brother and I performing a similar experiment on our neighbor's cat and their swimming pool.
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What's the statute of limitations on cruelty to animals?
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Can I do research on how the fruit flies in my room are depressed whenever I seal up the garbage bag and remove it?
Or when I hit them with bug spray?
Or how depressed they make ME feel?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I thought you were talking about Ubuntu release names. Or Ang Lee films at least.
Backups are for wimps. Real men post their data in comments and have slashdot mirror it
So I'm guessing these depressed hamsters are being used in testing black lipstick and black eyeliner? Allergies from pewter ankh necklaces? Tolerance to high decibel levels of Joy Division? What?
Slashdot requires you to wait longer between hitting 'reply' and submitting a comment.
how much Xanax does it require to get a hamster to hover?
From your point of view, or the hamster's?
Absolutely ridiculous, as if the only variable in a hamster's rationale is depression.. who's to say that the hamsters don't stop strugging because they realise that they're floating? This "test" and it's results could just as easily(and just as ridiculously) be used to "illustrate" hamster intelligence. Still, I can't help but chuckle at the thought of credential-touting scientists dropping hamsters into buckets of water and then analysing them on an emotional level...let's think about how that will be reflected upon in future history books.
Ideally I would need one to mature every week or so, for my python...
it's a blue bright blue Saturday hey hey
And I agree with you, Sir. Further, I feel that we need to study what happens when a hamster drops a scientist into a bucket of water. Balance is a requisite, Sir, for the history books. Also, for complete coverage, the comments and thoughts of the scientist could be recorded on some long-lasting medium. Graven in stone, perhaps.
How many beans make five, anyhow ?