How To Anesthetize an Octopus
sciencehabit writes Researchers have figured out how to anesthetize octopuses so the animals do not feel pain while being transported and handled during scientific experiments. In a study published online this month in the Journal of Aquatic Animal Health, researchers report immersing 10 specimens of the common octopus in seawater with isoflurane, an anesthetic used in humans. They gradually increased the concentration of the substance from 0.5% to 2%. The investigators found that the animals lost the ability to respond to touch and their color paled, which means that their normal motor coordination of color regulation by the brain was lost, concluding that the animals were indeed anesthetized. The octopuses then recovered from the anesthesia within 40 to 60 minutes of being immersed in fresh seawater without the anesthetic, as they were able to respond to touch again and their color was back to normal.
....was eager to know... :/
NO SIG
Deep frying works too.
between them not responding to touch & them not being aware. Imagine what it would be like, sloshing about in a travelling container of water and not being able to use your suckers to anchor yourself to a surface!
How to anesthetize an octopus.
Thanks Slashdot!
...how to titillate an ocelot.
(You oscillate its tit a lot.)
"AnaesthetizedOctupus". And the userID, of course, being a prime number.
Religous speak to God. Insane are spoken to by God. When all shut up, one can finally hear Shostakovich in peace
Come on Europe, Cyanobacteria have feelings too you know!!!
This reminds me of the cases where they used Curare for anesthesia. Turns out all it was doing was paralyzing the motor systems so the still fully conscious patients couldn't scream or otherwise react as the surgeons operated.
Might be a good idea to ask the octopuses afterwards if they remember from during the anesthetized time period. This can be done and would find out if they're really out cold or if they're just locked in.
No anime girls can carry isoflourane spray kits to stop tentacle rapists!
Silence is a state of mime.
Can computers become conscious? How would you anesthetise a conscious computer?
Today octopodes, tomorrow computers. See - relevant!
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. - Blake
Medicine isn't related to science? Who knew.
Something similar happened to me a couple of times. When one falls asleep the brain to muscle control parts shut down. When it does not shut down properly people sleep walk and actually do things during REM. The order in which you this part shuts down, and the part that gets stimuli-response module shuts down seems to be a little muddled for me, it looks like. Long story short, just as I was drifting to sleep, the phone would ring or something, and I would try to reach over to pick the phone, but my arms and legs would not respond. The sheer terror I felt when I could not move my arms and legs was just incredible. But terror would immediately jolt the adrenal glands and adrenaline would flood the body, wake me up fully with racing heart and profuse sweat. Eventually I went through sleep studies and was diagnosed with very mild apnea and got a CPAP machine that kept my airways inflated with above atmospheric pressure (just 6mm of water, 1 atm= 10.24 meters of water). Then those episodes stopped.
But I will never ever forget the terror I felt when I my muscles would not respond to the commands I was giving them.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Medical stories are high-tech, or have you never heard the term Bio-Tech? Also, with the advent of "good enough" computing, most people no longer care about the latest cpu and graphic card advances, so gotta find something else to get excited about.
"Transparent" is a shit show that trades on every stereotype going. A man in drag is NOT a transsexual.
Your fallacy is assuming consciousness is dependent on a physical body.
Octopodes are nerdy.
You do not want to offend Cthulhu. That matters.
Maybe consciousness isn't dependent on a physical body. However a physical anaesthetic when applied to a physical body can certainly "un" it! (albeit temporarily).
You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough. - Blake
Octopus are basically water going aliens that crash landed on earth, they have separate brains for each eyeball and almost as many neurons in the tentacles as the brain, plus their motor cortex is doughnut-shaped and encircles their throat. Yet they're smart enough to unscrew the lid of a peanut butter jar if they're trapped inside one, and more often than not can pick the winner in a soccer match. The fact that we have any idea of how to do anything with something as weird as an octopus is pretty damn impressive. This is hard core nerd biology/medicine, cutting edge right here.
Look, just be glad they didn't post pictures of ktitens, ok?
moox. for a new generation.
Complain all you want, but the money spent on anesthetics belongs to the lab. If not spent there it would be spent on something else related to the lab. It would not be given out to random people. Right or wrong, fair or not, that is how things are done. The lab cares about itself, not about people. And whoever funds the lab cares about the results.
They should allow the octopus access to the drug tank and see if they prefer it.
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
Isoflurane isn't exactly groundbreaking technology. It's the oldest gas anesthetic still in common use in the US.
Look, just be glad they didn't post pictures of ktitens, ok?
So we don't want to see octopuses eating kittens?
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