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jake-head-shot.jpgJake Young is a MD/PhD student at Mount Sinai School of Medicine focusing in Neuroscience. He is due to graduate in 2032. He received a BS and a MS in Biological Sciences from Stanford University -- where he spent most of his time drinking heavily and building vegetable catapults instead of learning information that would now be eminently useful. When he is not failing terrifically to perform his sworn duties, he enjoys watching bad movies, ethnic food, and running.

Pure Pedantry is a blog about science -- social sciences and otherwise -- as well as academic and scientific culture. No one can live on science alone, so I also like to dwell on pop culture, periodically explore the humanities, and indulge in other types of geeky goodness.

Jake is joined periodically by two wonderful guest bloggers: Kara Contreary and Kate Seip. See the About Page.

DISCLAIMERS: 1) Jake Young is not a licensed physician (yet). He is merely a medical student. The information published on this site is not intended for use in medical decision making. Please seek advice from a licensed, medical professional before making any health decisions. 2) The opinions expressed are my own or those of my co-bloggers. They do not represent the views of SEED magazine or the educational establishments we currently attend.

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« Elsewhere on the Interweb (4/21/08) | Main | Autism-vaccine subpeona update »

Damn you mouse!

Category: Haha, a funny
Posted on: April 21, 2008 1:37 PM, by Jake Young

This is from the Onion:

University of Iowa neuroscientists studying spatial learning and the effects of stress on memory announced Tuesday that a little son-of-a-bitch mouse ruined an experiment on cognitive performance by effortlessly navigating a maze that researchers spent nearly a year designing and constructing.

The test subject, a common house mouse, briskly traversed the complicated wooden maze in under 30 seconds or, according to the study's final report, roughly 1/8,789,258 as long as it took the lab to secure funding for the experiment. According to researchers administrating the standard Y-maze test, the fucking bastard never even broke his stride during the first trial, always selecting the correct route while consistently avoiding blind dead-end alleys.

"We were unable to observe any statistically significant behavioral changes in the subject, largely due to the fact that he was in such a goddamn hurry to finish the maze," said Dr. Richard Barret, who was forced to estimate the mouse's various reaction times after one of his assistants smashed the lab's stopwatch in anger. "Further analysis will be required to garner any useful knowledge regarding this particular mouse's neurological processes, his reflex response to stimuli, and how in the hell that stupid jerk reached the goal without screwing up once."

Damn you mouse, and damn your "learning" abilities. Don't you know we have important research to conduct?

I like this part too:

"Taking into account my past successful experiments with chimpanzees, it is my final analysis that we are dealing with one smart little fucker," said team member Dr. Russell Sutton, who has already applied for an additional grant to study cognitive learning in the same mouse. "I wonder if he'll be so smart without a functioning hippocampus."

Comments

This reminds me that there is no such thing as foolproof because there will always be a better fool to muck it up.

Posted by: Tony P | April 21, 2008 2:32 PM

Every now and then it's good to be reminded that, no matter how badly experiments go, at least I'm not doing in vivo stuff.

Posted by: Jamie | April 25, 2008 10:17 AM

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