![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Mad science is decadent and depraved
I can't remember the last time I laughed out loud while reading Monitor on Psychology. There happens to be a reason for this. Fortunately, there is an equally obvious solution: the APA should just publish more articles about planaria:
These results led McConnell to think more seriously about the chemical nature of memory. To test this notion, he needed to find a way to transfer the putative molecules from a trained to an untrained animal. But how? They tried to graft the head of a trained worm onto the tail of a naïve worm—but the head kept falling off.
Next, they tried grinding up trained worms and injecting them into naïve recipients, but that didn't work, either. The hypodermic needles were too big—getting one inside a flatworm was like trying to impale a prune with a javelin—and if, by chance, the needle was positioned well enough to inject the planarian-puree, it either oozed out or caused the worm to explode.
At Tea on Sunday, I got asked if I was a scientist or if I had been trained as one; the answer to both was no, unless you count messing around with slime mold and radio telescopes (not in the same high school project), but I could so go for some Things Man Was Not Meant to Know right now. Unfortunately, I have an early-morning non-mad doctor's appointment, so mostly I think I am going to go to bed.
These results led McConnell to think more seriously about the chemical nature of memory. To test this notion, he needed to find a way to transfer the putative molecules from a trained to an untrained animal. But how? They tried to graft the head of a trained worm onto the tail of a naïve worm—but the head kept falling off.
Next, they tried grinding up trained worms and injecting them into naïve recipients, but that didn't work, either. The hypodermic needles were too big—getting one inside a flatworm was like trying to impale a prune with a javelin—and if, by chance, the needle was positioned well enough to inject the planarian-puree, it either oozed out or caused the worm to explode.
At Tea on Sunday, I got asked if I was a scientist or if I had been trained as one; the answer to both was no, unless you count messing around with slime mold and radio telescopes (not in the same high school project), but I could so go for some Things Man Was Not Meant to Know right now. Unfortunately, I have an early-morning non-mad doctor's appointment, so mostly I think I am going to go to bed.
no subject
Sleep well.
no subject
There's just something so gloriously old-school mad-sciencey about the whole progression: "First we tried swapping their heads, but they fell off! Then we tried injection, but they exploded! But the answer was obvious—we'd overlooked the possibility of cannibalism. Finally, our problems were solved!"
no subject
no subject
This is very true. It's just about worthy of a character in a Shaenon Garrity comic. I like your summary, and agree with
no subject
*is giggling madly*
no subject
"Like trying to impale a prune with a javelin."
no subject
Worm-runners of the world, impale!
Nine
no subject
You have nothing to lose but your brains!
no subject
Works great at noon too. And what a hilarious sub-thread you began; bless!
no subject
no subject
Meanwhile, chew on this (not literally please); http://www.rdmag.com/News/2010/06/Life-Sciences-Proteomics-New-Technique-Turns-Proteins-Into-Glass/
Side Note: I've been having odd and disturbing dreams for the past week+ as well :/
Good luck at not-mad doctor's tomorrow!
no subject
I've known about the memory transference for years—I had just never realized that cannibalism was the least hilariously failed of all the attempted methods.
Duke Univ. researchers have devised a method to dry and preserve proteins in a glassified form that seems to retain the molecules' properties as workhorses of biology.
Okay, that's very neat.
Side Note: I've been having odd and disturbing dreams for the past week+ as well
It's like the world's suckiest powder of sympathy.
*hugs*
Good luck at not-mad doctor's tomorrow!
Thank you!
no subject
no subject
I was reminded simultaneously of The Magician's Nephew ("Some of them only died. Some exploded like little bombs") and Re-Animator. I didn't even think that could happen.
no subject
no subject
no subject
I love science.
no subject
no subject
No! Clearly I should be.
no subject
no subject
A terrible violation of medical ethics and that's terrible. Yeah.
Any transhuman ambitions you may have read in me are purely spurious, I assure you.
no subject
Hey, if it works and doesn't make me explode . . .
no subject
no subject
I know! I'm hoping it's a continuing series.
no subject
no subject
Welcome. I don't think I'll ever look at prunes the same way again.
no subject
no subject
It really makes me wish I could draw. The natural next step from this sentence—"During the period from 1959 through 1964, he received more than $150,000 (in 1960s dollars) from the Atomic Energy Commission and the National Institute of Mental Health designated specifically for the planarian work"—is obviously a webcomic about telepathic radioactive flatworms that share information by eating one another's brains.
no subject
But only certain kinds of information, predominantly tactical and analytical skill sets of a more aggressive nature; in order to share other kinds of information, let's say the intuitive arts, they must regurgitate their own brains and gently share then with those with whom they wish to interlocute. Of course! That's how the mysterious dispatcher of monster zombies in Manhattan restored the zombie's minds, thereby making them ex-zombies before rather than after killing them! But what nefarious revelations did the mysterious monster-killer glean from the restored brains of its victims that then caused her/him/it to flip out and rip apart all the briefly remindful monsters and scatter their corpses across the City's epic (or otherwise overpriced) rooftops? Or was it simply a matter of the mysterious monster-killer itself becoming a zombie by innocently sharing its brains with zombified monsters? Most important of all: What is the ex-secret of the excess ex-zombies? Stay tuned! Greater minds than mine may have the answers!
no subject
Never mind; it really makes me wish I had a radio show.
no subject