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Cockroaches at Their Best at Night
Science_afficionado writes "A new study has found that cockroaches are morons in the morning and geniuses in the evening in terms of their learning capacity. Previous studies suggest that the learning capacity of both people and rats are also affected by their internal biological clocks. But the effect is far more dramatic in cockroaches and it is the first time it has been found in insects. And, no, the researchers didn't try giving their cockroaches a sip of coffee to see if it revived them!"
They also seem to assume there are no other factors involved. Maybe it's not 'ability' to learn but 'desire' instead. Maybe their digestive system doesn't normally work at that time of day, and there's not enough incentive to learn. There's probably a billion other reasons they haven't thought of, right down to which researchers worked with which groups, and what other smells were nearby at each time, etc. I'm sure they tried to rule out all outside influence, but it's impossible to do so completely.
I'd also like to remind everyone that a finding doesn't have any weight until it's been independently verified by a couple other labs.
"If you make people think they're thinking, they'll love you; But if you really make them think, they'll hate you." - DM
From TFA
The study was supported by a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health.
Presumably they're interested in the effect of the circadian system on memory aquisition and retrival, which is certainly worth studying and probably simailar in all animals, and its far easier to do initial work on insects and then scale it up to mammals.
There might also be direct benefits to understanding cockroach behaviour, since they are a major public health risk in some parts of the world.