July 25, 2007

(Laughing) Rats in the News

Did you know that rats laugh?



Jaak Panksepp, neuroscientist at Bowling Green State University, talks about how rats actually laugh. Science News Online quotes him as saying "but you have to know the rat."

And in this week's Science Times, Natalie Angier wrote about rats: "A host of new behavioral studies makes plain that the similarities between us and Rattus extend far beyond gross anatomy."

For More Information
* Don't look now, but is that dog laughing?,
Science News Online, July 28, 2001.
* Panksepp, J., Burgdorf, J. "Laughing" rats and the evolutionary antecedents of human joy?
Physiology and Behavior, (2003) 79 (3), pp. 533-547.
* Angier, Natalie. Smart, Curious, Ticklish. Rats?, New York Times, July 24, 2007.

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