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What Ecstasy Does To Octopuses (theatlantic.com)
Gul Dolen, a neuroscientist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine who studies how the cells and chemicals in animal brains influence animals' social lives, gave ecstasy to octopuses and recorded her observations. The study, published in the journal Current Biology, suggests that the psychoactive drug that can make people feel extra loving toward others also has the same effect on octopuses. An anonymous reader shares the report from The Atlantic: [Dolen] and her colleague Eric Edsinger put five Californian two-spot octopuses individually into the middle of three connected chambers and gave them free rein to explore. One of the adjacent chambers housed a second octopus, confined inside an overturned plastic basket. The other contained an unfamiliar object, such as a plastic flower or a Chewbacca figurine. Dolen and Edsinger measured how long the main animal spent in the company of its peer, and how long with the random toy. The free-moving individuals thoroughly explored the chambers, and from their movements, Dolen realized that individuals of any sex gravitate toward females, but avoid males. Next, she dosed the animals with ecstasy. Again, there's no precedent for this, but researchers often anesthetize octopuses by dunking them in ethanol -- a humane procedure with no lasting side effects. So Dolen and Edsinger submerged their octopuses in an MDMA solution, allowing them to absorb the drug through their gills. At first they used too high a dose, and the animals "freaked out and did all these color changes," Dolen says. But once the team found a more suitable dose, the animals behaved more calmly -- and more sociably. "With ecstasy in their system, the five octopuses spent far more time in the company of the same trapped male they once shunned," the report continues. "Even without a stopwatch, the change was obvious. Before the drug, they explored the chamber with the other octopus very tentatively."
"They mashed themselves against one wall, very slowly extended one arm, touched the [other animal], and went back to the other side," Dolen says. "But when they had MDMA, they had this very relaxed posture. They floated around, they wrapped their arms around the chamber, and they interacted with the other octopus in a much more fluid and generous way. They even exposed their [underside], where their mouth is, which is not something octopuses usually do."
"They mashed themselves against one wall, very slowly extended one arm, touched the [other animal], and went back to the other side," Dolen says. "But when they had MDMA, they had this very relaxed posture. They floated around, they wrapped their arms around the chamber, and they interacted with the other octopus in a much more fluid and generous way. They even exposed their [underside], where their mouth is, which is not something octopuses usually do."
I wonder how long the inevitable website(s) pops up ...
This is your ___ animal on Ectasy.
> "They even exposed their [underside], where their mouth is, which is not something octopuses usually do."
Everyone start tripping balls on MDMA.
Sent from my TARDIS
Now *this* is what I consider worthwhile research.
Ezekiel 23:20
Usually it's towards the end of the evening and I am spilling drinks on myself.
The real question... does ecstasy make octopuses feel extra loving toward researchers? Just think of the possibilities.
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
philosophically anyway. It lends credence to the idea that social behaviors can be traced back to certain chemical responses. The reason that matters is stuff like religion and the origin of morality. There's a pretty big debate on, for example, whether you can have morality without God. This is a notch on the atheist's side since it implies socializing might have a generalized chemical factor to it.
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Even though 'octopuses' or even 'octopodes' are etymologically correct and 'octopi' is not. It just sounds better out when said aloud.
Palaces, barricades, threats, meet promises
They clearly need to try LSD next.
We need to be careful here not to infer that the rolling subject octopuses are spending more time with the contained male because they want to interact socially. We don't know how sober octopuses think, so it is terribly wrong to assume that high ones are not just out of their minds with no idea what they are really doing. We do know what different dosages of MDMA tend to do to humans, though there is still variability there, while we know nothing about the octopus MDMA response curve. It appears that MDMA does make them behave abnormally but it is impossible thus far to draw any conclusions about octopus motivations, and probably wrong to apply human concepts of mood and socialization. The octopuses exposing their undersides and doing flips and whatnot might indicate that they've lost their shit, more so than that they feel all warm and fuzzy and want to cuddle.
This is a hacked account, for which the owner can not be held responsible.
Everyone has their own name for it...
"I say we take off, nuke the site from orbit. It's the only way to be sure."
....
Been testing out MDA for a bit. Noticed if I do it 4 times in a row with a 100-150mg dose every two weeks the magic disappears on the 4th time. If I do it once a month seems to have the normal MDA/MDMA trip magic, unlike the every two weeks. Now add it about .4 grams of shrooms with a dose of mda 30 min later and good times....
by TheSpoom (715771) Uncaring Linux user here. I have nothing to add to this but please continue. *munches popcorn*
Nobody denies that brain chemistry exists. So it's not "a notch" for anyone. Drugs can make you feel different ways - yeah we've all known that for at least 7,000 years.
Well, I take that back - sometimes when someone is seriously under the influence of heavy drugs, they might think they are having a spiritual experience rather than a chemical experience. But they also think that they could walk through a wall if they really, really wanted to, think they ARE walking when they are actually sitting still, and think that Bernie Sanders makes sense. So we can disregard what they think when they're really, really high.
The question isn't whether or not brain chemistry exists and can affect our emotions. The question are:
Are our emotions linked to something eternal, or are they purely random happenstance?
Is their a *reason* we have brains and emotions, a purpose, or is it again totally random and devoid of any meaning or purpose?
When you use the words "religion" and "God", those words have thousand different meanings; everyone has different ideas about what this "God" thing is. What all the major world religions agree on, a common denominator, is that Exodus and Moses are Canon (plus and Exodus account also appears in Egyptian records). So the generally agreed part of what "God" is would include God's answer to Moses when he asked in Exodus who Had is. The Greek is really hard to translate accurately to English because English uses the word "is" for several different meanings, but a reasonable translation would be "I am the eternal", or "I (permanently) am", or "I am what is everlasting".
Given God's own answer as to who / what God is, in the book most agreed on, that's why I say the question is whether our spirits, our deepest emotional selves, are connected to something eternal. Because "the eternal" is the one definition of "God" that most agree on.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerome_Lettvin
Seemed a bit harsh that they subjected these noble creatures to an ecstasy overdose. Reminded me of this skit from The Onion:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
A Canadian short documentary (2 minutes) on exposing spiders to different drugs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?...
I've been watching a bunch of Youtube videos on Atheism (Dawkins, Aronra, Chistopher Hutches, Genetic Skeptic). One of the main talking points for the Creationist side is that you need the supernatural to explain morality (supernatural here doesn't mean ghosts & magic, it means something beyond nature). The Atheists for their part argue that morality can exist without supernatural explanations.
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So I take some Extacy and then I get erotically attracted by a male Octopus ... ... where do I find one?
Sounds not to bad
Cost free eBook I read (by iBook/Kobo/Amazon/ObookO/Gutenberg etc.): "The Green Odyssey" by Philip Jose Farmer.
> is that Exodus and Moses are Canon
*facepalm*
The Torah is NOT a history book. Take Genesis: It has the lie of omission about Adam's first wife, has contradictory creation stories (Man is created _after_ the animals in chapter 1, but _before_ the animals in chapter 2), has the nonsense of day & night existing BEFORE the sun was made, chapter 4:4 shows that there were humans BEFORE Adam, etc. In Exodus we find nine of the ten commandments come directly out of the Egyptian Book of the Dead. The only ones treating Moses as canon are those ignorant of history.
It is obvious you've never read it, let alone understand the allegory of it.
e.g. Why is Day 2 of the creation is the ONLY day that doesn't say "It was good."
Theyâ(TM)re turning the frogs gay! :-D
There are two rules for success:
1. Never tell everything you know.
The reason the researchers used octopuses is not to gather any special insight into neurochemistry that an octopus may provide, but simply because invertebrates are not covered by animal experimentation laws.
Through genetic testing, the authors of this study were able to determine that octopuses and vertebrates all share the neural transmitters that MDMA acts upon.
The authors then go on to ask whether the drug functions similarly in humans and animals when it comes to social situations. I don't know how much literature there is on the social abilities of octopodes, but that this study discovers that they all prefer females over males seems to indicate it's pretty rudimentary. It's hard to believe that any real social abilities can be measured in a species so poorly understood.
On the other hand, there are tons of studies on the social habits of monkeys, apes, dogs, cats, mice... why not try one of them?
Now we're back to the top. Octopuses are not covered by the animal experimentation laws, and the authors chose to not have any oversight from their campus Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (which they could have done to be ethical, even though it's not legally required), which makes this whole study feel really gross.
The Torah is NOT a history book.
That's right, it's five books!
Take Genesis: It has the lie of omission about Adam's first wife,
Genesis didn't have a member named Adam. You mean Phil Collins?
has contradictory creation stories (Man is created _after_ the animals in chapter 1, but _before_ the animals in chapter 2
So he made at least two worlds trying out different orders of creation. Where's the contradiction? If anything this makes it more plausible because it explains why we don't see Spiderman in this world. (He's in the other one).
has the nonsense of day & night existing BEFORE the sun was made,
The sun only comes out during the day because it's scared of the dark. I thought everyone knew that, jeez.
Chapter 4:4 shows that there were humans BEFORE Adam, etc.
Go on any star wars fan site, and they'll all agree the original trilogy is canon. This happened A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away. Obviously Luke Skywalker came before Adam, so this just confirms both the Torah and the Star Wars trilogy.
I could go on but I think it's clear all your concerns can easily be resolved by saying whatever nonsense comes into my head. This awfully stringent requirement that your worldview must make sense is like shackles upon you. Like so many slashdot users you have learnt to accept the shackles and love your captor like some sort of twisted figurative stockholm syndrome. Only when you rid yourself of these shackles are you truly free! Remember ignorance is bliss, and why would you not want bliss? Follow me and I give you ultimate freedom and ultimate bliss. We can talk about tithing later.
Yet did anyone give any thought to the feelings of the one trapped in a basket? It might sound very empathic and touchy-feely to anthropomorphise the behaviour. However if they are naturally wary of others of their own species, then to the target of such behaviour, it becomes intrusive. Much like quietly minding your own business and then having a drunk take the seat next to you on a train or plane and spend the whole journey "getting friendly".
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
What's Octopus for "I love you?"
Requiem for the American Dream
No but they can definitely lead to homosexual sex.
I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
Oh great; now we're going to have an #octotoo thing ...
Like fluoride
The Torah is NOT a history book. Take Genesis...
If you take the time to read them, it's quite easy to see that there's a fundamental difference between Genesis (really just the first quarter or so of it) and the rest of the Torah. The parts that read like a mythology are a fairly small percentage overall; once you get past the first section of Genesis, there's mostly just a few brief stories. The last part of Genesis (how the small tribe of Israel fled from the famine in their homeland to settle in Egypt) and the first part of Exodus (a slave revolt a few hundred years later) are the major historical sections, though the rest of the journey from Egypt back to Canaan is scattered through the rest of the Torah. The rest of Exodus is laws and a very lengthy description of the construction of the portable tabernacle. Leviticus and Numbers are mostly just laws and rituals. Deuteronomy is mostly a speech by Moses shortly before he dies, which includes some repetition of earlier laws and some new laws.
So no, the Torah isn't really a history book, it's more of a law book ("torah" literally means law). Yes, Genesis includes some creation stories, but the rest of the Torah includes things like how much you owe your neighbor when your ox kills his sheep.
Gul Dolen, a neuroscientist at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine...
I understand that diversity is a goal these days, but is this the first Cardassian working at an Earth school?
"Drowned in a vat of whiskey ... Death, where is thy sting?" -- W. C. Fields
source
Folks don't seem to realize how many evangelicals America has. Our Vice President is a Dominionist, for example.
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is either that the holy spirit works within the heretics or that the heretic knows that their religion is the one true one but doesn't want to profess belief because of either social pressure or a desire to sin.
If you ask me it's working backwards from the conclusion but that's their argument.
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How is that cure for cancer coming along?