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Snails On Methamphetamine
sciencehabit writes "Science answers the question: What happens when you put a snail on speed? From the article: 'The results suggest that meth improves memory, something that has been previously observed in creatures with large, complex brains like rats and humans. But since the snails store their memories in a simple, three-neuron network, the team hopes that studying the meth effect in these gastropods will help pinpoint how the drug's memory magnification powers work.'"
It's easier to monitor three neurons than it is the complex neural networks of larger life forms. Kind of the same way it's easier to administrate a three-computer home network than it is to administrate google's infrastructure. Did you really need this spelled out to you?
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
Because meth totally gives you the munchies...
Biological mechanisms get reused all the time(*). It's plausible enough to be worth investigating that at least some of human memory storage uses mechanisms related to what simpler ancestors used.
(*) The API for temperature control, for example, got reused across the transition from cold-blooded to warm-blooded. Get a lizard sick, and it spends more time basking so as to give itself a fever. Give it aspirin, and it goes back in the shade.
No, this is what happens when you put scientists on pot:
Mr. X.
TFA screwed up the link to the original journal article
http://jeb.biologists.org/cgi/content/full/213/12/i
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!