Do you have any funny shit post to here. Any Rumors. Any funny Pics or Jokes. It is a slow and Quiet day on the Org. Listen close enough and you can hear Crickets.

okay:

Hmm ... Rats think like humans
Rats appear capable of reflecting on their own cognition

Rats appear capable of a complex form of thinking before known to exist only in humans and other primates — the capacity to reflect on what they do or do not know.

"If rats can do it, this capability may be more widespread than imagined," Jonathon Crystal, a comparative psychologist at University of Georgia, told LiveScience.

Humans often are aware of what knowledge they possess or lack and what they are or are not capable of.

"Imagine, for instance, that you're a student going into a classroom to take an exam," Crystal said. "You will often have some idea how well you're going to do on the test. You know before you answer the questions whether you know or don't know the answers. This pretty complex form of cognition, known as metacognition, is at the heart of the human condition."

Increasingly, evidence of metacognition is found in rhesus monkeys and other primates, but little research has been done on it in other mammals. Crystal and his colleague Allison Foote decided to push the limit and see if rats were capable of it.

Rats were given a choice to take a test. If they bailed out of the test by poking their noses into one hole, they received a small reward of food pellets. If they opted in by nudging their snouts into another hole, passing the test resulted in a large reward of pellets, while failure yielded nothing.

The test played the rats noises that were either short (between 2 and 3.6 seconds) or long (between 4.4 and 8 seconds). The rodents then had to classify the recent noise as either long or short by pressing one of two levers. This choice was relatively easy if the noise was either very short or very long—for instance, 2 seconds or 8 seconds. However, the decision was far harder if the noise was easily confused as either short or long — for instance, 4.4 seconds.
The scientists found the rats appeared capable of judging whether they had enough information to pass the test. The more difficult the test was, the more often rodents opted to decline the test.

The discovery of this form of thinking in rats opens up further experiments into the brain anatomy and chemistry underlying metacognition in rats, "which could impact human health," Crystal said. "For instance, two human health issues linked with metacognition that come to mind are Alzheimer's disease and amnesia."

Foote and Crystal detailed their findings yesterday in the online version of the journal Current Biology.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/...0/?from=ET

http://www.youtube.com/wa...Ls7DSxsLog

This commercial gets me every fuckin' time!!

it's more weird than funny, but still:

this past monday i was on my way home from work...i walk past the target center every day to and from my job. anyway, i'm walking past and this guy came outta the target center and walked in front of me to get to his car...all the sudden he jumped up in the air and clicked his heels.

it was just strange, like i was in a cartoon for a split second. whatever he hopped n'clicked for, it must've been good.

looks like this thread is going no where. The org is a Ghost town. is anybody out there. State your name.

jaimestarr79 said:

everybody's posting that "ask me" shit. go bug them.

Handclapsfingasnapz said:

That reminds me of a story my brother told me about this one time when he was standing outside a club late one night and this homeless guy walks up to him and says all serious, "If you see anything weird, email me", then walks away.

FruitToAttractBears said:

oh HELL YEAH!!!

you can always count on Jersey to post something! Now that my get the ball rolling.

jerseykrs said:

Veterinarian diagnoses Rapcat's rhymes as "seriously ill."

FruitToAttractBears said:

rap cat is the fucking man.

JustErin said:

You just reminded me about the time I went to Toronto and This homeless guy had a nicer cd player than I had, and he was asking me for change.

I saw this while looking for HK stuff.

jerseykrs said:

the fuck???

jerseykrs said:

HAHAHAHA!

Saved!

jerseykrs said:

IrresistibleB1tch said:

That was kinda creepy.

AnckSuNamun said:

in a sexy sort of way, right?