Becareful of what you eat (388 hits)
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Submitted by Li & Chen (View user info) at 2006-10-19 13:01:24 EDT
Among the many interesting finds that I made yesterday afternoon, one was from a magazine "Psychology Today". It tells of the imprint that cocaine leaves in the brain of mice. Let me paraphrase the text from memory:
In a pretty psychology laboratory somewhere, a sample of mice lived in comfortable cages, free from the stresses of life such as being harassed by a big furry cat, or being dunked in a water bath by researchers to analyse the stress response of mice. In each of these cage, a little lever is installed. This lever is connected to a food pellet dispenser, which will drop a pellet of food when the lever is pressed.
All is fine on a sunny spring morning. A soft beam of morning sunshine penetrates the characterless laboratory, bathing the cages and its inhabitants in a warm, healthy glow. Pimpernickle the snowy white lab mouse had just awoke from his light sleep, and was hungry for some breakfast. He went over to the food dispenser, and pressed the lever. On usual days, a brown, granular lump of edible material would clatter down a tubular chute onto the cage floor, whereupon he would consume it readily.
However, today was not a normal day. When Pimpernickle pressed on the food lever, a sharp, loud buzz came from below his cage. After a longer than usual wait, his food palette came tumbling out of its dispensing tube. Instead of being brown, it was a slightly off-white colour today. "Ahh...what the heck," Pumpernickel told himself, before gobbling down his breakfast.
"The taste is different," was all Pimpernickle could think before he entered a state of altered consciousness. He was both hyper alert and sleepy at the same time, and he knew things he had never knew before. He was aware of a book with the title "Sophie's World", and he felt like he had consumed a gallon of the blue and red liquids described within it. He could see things both as a unique individual and as part of a larger existence, all at once. "Wow, this rocks!" he shouted to himself, "I'm a distinct and unique part of the universe, yet I can also be one with everything."
Pimpernickle was high for 2 hours.
After that one off cocaine shot, Pimpernickle received no more drug pellets from the lever. It only dispensed food. It appears that everything has returned back to normal. Far from it. Although Pimpernickle did not know it, the loud buzzing sound had already been associated with a cocaine hit. Psychologists say that he has been "conditioned".
One year later, after spring turned into summer, browning into autumn, autumn to winter, it was spring all over again. Pimpernickle's experience with the cocaine hit 4 seasons ago had all been forgotten, and he went about his daily chores of eating and defecating. Abruptly, out of nowhere, a loud buzzing sound erupted at him. Immediately the cocaine experience from a year back came flooding back to him, and he wanted more of it.
Pimpernickle rushed to the food dispensing lever and pressed it frantically, hoping that it there would be another dose of cocaine waiting for him. There was none.
As a control group in the experiment, several other mice had been given a pellet of condensed milk instead of the evil cocaine pellet. These control mice would react to the buzz in the first month or so after the milk treat, but would be long forgotten by the next year. Cocaine is different; it leaves a very strong imprint in the brain that cannot be erased easily.
In other words, Pimpernickle was screwed.
The morals of this story?
Don't be a lab mouse. And of course, don't try cocaine. "Once you pop, you can't stop"- Pringles
User Reviews
Submitted by Shlongy (user info) at 2006-10-19 17:42:57 EDT (#)
Ranking: -2
Be careful...WHEN YOU EAT MY DICK.
Submitted by Orgasmatron (user info) at 2006-10-19 13:49:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
This post, like most things in life, needs more Johnny Cash:
Early one morning while making the rounds
I took a shot of cocaine and I shot my woman down
Went back home and I went to bed
I stuck that lovin' forty-four beneath my head
Got up next morning and I grabbed that gun
I took a shot of cocaine and away I run
Made a good run, but I run too slow
They overtook me down in Juarez, Mexico
Laid in the hot joint takin the pill
In walked a sheriff from Jericho Hill
He said "Willy Lee, your name is not Jack Brown.
"You're the dirty hack that shot your woman down."
Oh yes, oh yes, my name is Willy Lee
If you got a warrant just-a read it to me
Shot her down 'cause she made me sore
I thought I was her daddy, but she had five more
When I was arrested I was dressed in black
They put me on a train and they took me back
I had no friend for to go my bail
They stuck my dried up carcass in the county jail
Early next morning 'bout half past nine
I saw a sheriff walking down the line
The sheriff coughed and he cleared his throat
"C'mon you dirty hack into the district court"
The next morning my trial began
Where I was held by twelve honest men
And before the jury started out
I saw that little judge commence to look about
In about five minutes in walked a man
Holding the verdict in his right hand
The verdict read in the first degree
I hollared "Lordy, lordy, have mercy on me"
The judge smiled as he picked up his pen
"Ninety nine years in the Folsom Pen.!"
Ninety nine years underneath that ground
I won't forget the day I shot that bad bitch down
C'mon you hotheads listen up to me
Stay off that whiskey and let that cocaine be...
Submitted by ubetidid (user info) at 2006-10-19 13:45:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
he had never KNOWN before.
Submitted by St_Jimmy (user info) at 2006-10-19 13:18:05 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
typo in the title
And it's kind of hard to believe that one dose is enough to fully condition a response.
Don't suppose this study was funded by the Partership for a Drug-Free America?
Submitted by Felony (user info) at 2006-10-19 13:14:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: -1
No Comment
Submitted by JonnyX (user info) at 2006-10-19 13:13:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I think it's funny that an Asian guy is telling us to be careful of what we eat - unlike you people, I don't eat anything that has more than 4 legs.