Even In the Wild Mice Run In Wheels

sciencehabit (1205606) writes "Scientists have found that if they place a running wheel outside, wild animals will flock to it. The researchers observed more than 200,000 mice, rats, and even frogs using the apparatus over a three year period. The findings suggest that like (some) humans, mice and other animals may simply exercise because they like to. Figuring out why certain strains of mice are more sedentary than others could help shed light on genetic differences between more active and sedentary people."

Comments

I'm sedentary

[i kan reed]

Most of the time I'm sedentary it's because my job has me sit at a desk typing code(or slashdot comments) all day. This is exacerbated for most people, because they attach an hour or more of sedentary driving onto each end.

And being sedentary is mentally exhausting compared to light exercise. It's no surprise that there's an obesity epidemic.

Re:I'm sedentary

[Sarten-X]

This is a terrible idea.

If you're not used to exercising, your tissues aren't as elastic as they should be for typical workouts, especially in a gym setting where peer pressure encourages pushing limits. Pain is your body's warning that you've gotten a bit too close to those limits. With pain reliever, you don't get that early warning, so the first indication you have that something's wrong is a torn muscle or immobility the next day. After that, you'll need time to recover, allowing other nearby muscles to weaken again.

Heed your body's warnings. You don't get another one.

Re:I'm sedentary

[sexconker]

Processed food is converted into fat.

Some pain may be discouraging. Try some pain reliever before workout.

Please define processed food, then please tell us why it is bad. Be specific.

Processed food is fucking good for you. The majority of western civilization would be fucked without processed food. Everything from pasteurized milk to enriched/fortified bread to iodized salt to canned goods are "processed" in order to increase safety, bolster nutrition because people can't feed themselves, and extend shelf life. Just cooking food is processing it. If you don't like "processed food" you should be eating all your meats raw. And before you think you can get around that by eating a vegetarian diet, you should know that soy, the single most common form of complete protein in a vegetarian diet, is heavily processed.

Re: I'm sedentary

[ceoyoyo]

"Swelling" is an inflammatory reaction to damage. Exercise-related muscle (and bone) growth happens when microscopic damage happens to the tissue, provoking an inflammatory response. The repairs over do it, producing stronger post-repair tissue.

So yes, the "swelling" contributes to tissue repair and growth.

Re:Slug

[lagomorpha2]

Slugs apprently frequent this thing (hard to call it a running wheel when's a slug).

I wish there was a video of this I could speed up 20x, loop, and add music to.

Determining Motive.

[Wycliffe]

It seems a stretch to jump from "wild mice run in a treadmill" to "mice like to exercise".
What if the treadmill is similiar to what laser pointers are to cats or video games are to humans?
It could be that the mice thinks it's accomplishing something or has some other reason that
it uses the treadmill other than because it likes to exercise.

Re:Determining Motive.

[mr_mischief]

Maybe it's a dumb mouse never quite finding the source of the pheremone trail it's following.

Re:Determining Motive.

[Anonymous Coward]

If they REALLY consider it a piece of exercise equipment, then the mice will hang laundry on it after a few weeks..

Not exactly surprising

[overshoot]

We have IR cameras set up to watch the back yard at night. There's a fox that spends a lot of time there, and she seems to have brought a toy (a tennis ball) with her. She plays with it a lot.

Re:They may be stuck

[pr0nbot]

The paper states that animals would enter the wheel, leave it, and then re-enter it. That could be accidental but doesn't suggest escape.

I can relate: exercise prevents moodiness

[Vegan Cyclist]

In a way i can totally relate to this - i'm a fairly high-level bike racer, and if i don't ride for 2-3 days, i find i start to get moody and restless, and it's *always* cured by getting out and getting my heart going a bit. Even a walk will make the difference. I wasn't active as a kid, only really started in my 20's, but ever since i started, i need to keep active to keep in a good headspace...and i know of several other riders who say the same thing. Their partners actually tell them to get out and ride because they get in a state when they're inactive. Maybe in a way other species are responding to some kind of natural need to keep active....?

Re:They may be stuck

[CrimsonAvenger]

hey may have been brought into the wheel because of curiosity, and are trying to escape by running away.

Saw a short video related to this last night.

The mouse in question came up to the thing, climbed on, ran as fast as its little legs would carry it for a few seconds, till it was about 40 degrees from vertical...then stopped and let the thing carry him back and forth till to halted.

Then he got off, took a few steps, turned around, and repeated the whole process.

Personally, I think they were doing it for the fun factor - "Hey, guys! Watch this!"....

Re:The better mouse trap?

[PPH]

Centrifuge. As soon as the mouse starts running, the rotation is detected and a motor kicked on to drive the RPM up to 50 or 60K. Mouse parts get squeezed through bars on wheel.

Now pardon me while I go back to eating my breakfast.

NSAIDs and Ice Interfere With Training, Healing

[littlewink]

At least one study says NSAIDs Interfere with Proper Training. Surprisingly, so does ice!

Here's an interesting page with a small study(search for "McMaster" of a group of 11 subjects that seems to indicate massage is very useful (even better than exercise?) - Weird! Also it has a note on ibuprofen and NSAIDs.