Backyard Brains Can Help Satisfy Your Inner Frankenstein (Video)

Did you know that cockroaches have such large nerves in their legs that you can poke into their legs almost at random and hit a nerve with an electrode so you can stimulate that leg with hip-hop music and and watch it move? And that you can easily order the parts to do this at home or at school? You can. And supplies to perform many other neuroscience experiments, too. Amaze your friends! Learn how neurons work! Gross out squeamish people! All that (and more) is what Backyard Brains is about.

Comments

That's not funny

[Gothmolly]

Sticking an electrode into a creature and have it twitching to music is not funny, it's cruel.

Re:That's not funny

[slimjim8094]

That's what I thought, but they cut off the leg (not do it on the cockroach), use juvenile cockroaches that can grow their legs back, and they anesthetize the roach with icewater first.

Re:That's not funny

[codewarren]

If you stuck a venus fly trap for the same purpose, or you stabbed a maple tree for the purpose of making it bleed, is that also cruel? Practically everyone can see that it is cruel to do this to a human, while practically everyone can see it is not cruel to do this to do it to a plant. Somewhere between these, we went from cruel to not cruel. Is there a line, on one side of which is cruel, and on the other is not cruel, or is there a spectrum of cruelty here? And what property of these "creatures" makes it crueler to do so to some, than to others?

Re:That's not funny

[million_monkeys]

That's a pretty weak defense against a claim of cruelty. A human analogue: Suppose you need a bunch of healthy teeth for an experiment. Find a child and yank out a few teeth - they'll grow new ones eventually. Shoot them up full of Novocaine first and they won't even feel it. I assume no one thinks that's acceptable?

If you're ok with the process because it's only a cockroach, just admit that. Don't try to use some false justification to convince yourself that you were humane about cutting it's leg off.

Re:That's not funny

[seven of five]

Don't be too surprised if, after you die, there's a roomful of oversized roaches waiting for you with jumper cables and a car battery.

Re:That's not funny

[codewarren]

A human analog is irrelevant. Humans are not analogous to cockroaches in this way. Humans feel pain through nociceptors. Cockroaches don't have these.

Besides that Humans can feel horror and misery that a brain as simple as a cockroaches almost certainly cannot. They do not have higher emotions and higher functions. They don't even have memory. Whatever it is like to be a cockroach, it is almost certainly nothing like what it is like to be a human.

Re:That's not funny

[l0ungeb0y]

Whatever it is like to be a cockroach, it is almost certainly nothing like what it is like to be a human.

Excuse me, but a Mr. Franz Kafka says he would like to have a word with you.

Re:That's not funny

[Rakishi]

Cockroaches are not humans.

By your argument a neural network running on my computer also feels "pain" and our collective computer systems are the worst set of torturers to have ever existed.

Re:That's not funny

[AioKits]

So you're okay with torturing something as long as your end goal is to kill it? Because all those things are closer to torture than what they did in this experiment.

If I find a cockroach in the kitchen I make sure to set up my tiny crucifixion of him in the middle of the kitchen floor. Sure it may be months before he dies, but it serves as a warning to the rest of the bastards in hiding.

Re:That's not funny

[codewarren]

By this logic, mowing one's lawn is a virtual holocaust of cruelty.

Cockroaches

[scubamage]

At first the animal lover in me was wondering about the ethics of randomly cutting apart cockroaches without any clear scientific benefit outside of learning (at least dissections tend to teach more than one person - disclaimer, I was on a human subject review board for scientific studies at my college). However it looks like they go out of their way to actually keep everything humane. And, its also important to note that the cockroaches are anesthetized, and their legs do in fact grow back. They get a thumbs up!

Re:Cockroaches

[durrr]

I'm pretty sure that insects are not covered by any animal cruelty laws and regulations, building a cockroach-sized medieval torture chamber is as such entirely legal although perhaps somewhat eccentric.

Slashvertisement

[Anonymous Coward]

Did you know that nerds have such large deficiencies in their brains that you can post Slashdot articles almost at random so you can stimulate that advertising revenue with advertisements disguised as badly edited articles and watch them squirm? And that you can easily order the editors to do this at home or at work? You can. And supplies to perform many other psychology experiments, too. Amaze your investors! Learn how marketing works! Alienate your readers! All that (and more) is what Slashvertisement is about.

Re:oh jesus fucking christ on a pogo stick

[Anonymous Coward]

can we repeat this experiment with the leg of a PETA member?

No, unlike roaches, PETA members lack the functional nervous system required for this to work.

So, how's monetizing Slashdot working out?

[GodfatherofSoul]

Shameless articles about torturing animals (even insects are beneath this) and astroturfing posts cheering them on. Wag of the finger, site I used to love...