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Rats Feel Each Other's Pain

Posted by Soulskill on from the no-wonder-my-rat-gladiator-farm-never-took-off dept.

sciencehabit writes "Empathy lets us feel another person's pain and drives us to help ease it. But is empathy a uniquely human trait? For decades researchers have debated whether nonhuman animals possess this attribute. Now a new study shows that rats will free a trapped cagemate in distress. The results mean that these rodents can be used to help determine the genetic and physiological underpinnings of empathy in people."

2 of 200 comments (clear)

  1. "Empathy Tests" by danbuter · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Hopefully, by empathy tests, they don't mean torture one rat and see how the others react.

    1. Re:"Empathy Tests" by codeAlDente · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Unfortunately yes. It's only been about half a century since there was active social debate in the US about whether people from other races were just dumb, mindless beasts.

      --
      He once inserted random mutations into his code, just so he could have the experience of debugging.