2025 version
The ‘mad egghead’ who built a mouse utopia | Science | The Guardian
As he summarised his results, Calhoun again befuddled his audience, telling them of a class of mice that had appeared after the rodent population bomb had exploded and the population had rocketed. These were what Calhoun dubbed “the Beautiful Ones” – mice that spent their time grooming themselves and eating and shunned all social behaviour. The Beautiful Ones, Calhoun told his audience, were “capable only of the most simple behaviours compatible with physiological survival”. In time, Calhoun came to believe that if we didn’t act to stop a potential human population bomb from igniting, we would see human parallels.
Something a little different today from that Guardian link above and well worth thinking about: Standing before the Royal Society of Medicine in London on 22 June 1972, the ecologist turned psychologist John Bumpass Calhoun, the director of the Laboratory of Brain Evolution and Behavior at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, appeared a mild-mannered, smallish man, sporting a greying goatee. After what must surely have been one of the oddest opening remarks to the Royal Society in its storied 200-plus-year history – “I shall largely speak of mice,” Calhoun began, “but my thoughts are on man, on healing, on life and its evolution” – he spoke of a long-term experiment he was running on the effects of overcrowding and population crashes in mice. Members of the Royal Society were scratching their heads as Calhoun told them of Universe 25, a giant experimental setup he had built and which he described as “a utopian environment constructed for mice”. […] Why has Calhoun’s work not fared well in the world of academia? For one thing, after he published his Death Squared study, Calhoun rarely published his results in mainstream science journals, and, indeed, many of his studies, including those on Universes 33 and 34 – in which he examined whether cooperation reduced explosive rates of population growth in his rodents (it did) – were never published at all. Word of those studies would only have spread through people who heard Calhoun lecture about them or read a… Read more »
but we digress…
The House Ethics Committee voted along party lines not to release their report on Trump’s pick for Attorney General, the President-elect announced he will nominate WWE executive Linda McMahon to run the Department of Education, Stephen takes a look at Dr. Oz’s history of medical quackery, and Jaguar released a ridiculous video to announce the luxury carmaker’s rebranding.
Very interesting article, never heard of the rat guy. This paragraph got me thinking about the “pathological togetherness” of MAGAts and the “behavioural sink” where they’ve put us all (btw, British spelling irritates me):
Everybody joining me on my favorite hobby horse?
Global Population 18o0 – 1 Billion
Global Population 1960 – 3 Billion
Global Population 2024 – 8 Billion
Animal populations have declined by 73% in just 50 years with extinctions in many groups.
Musk vs Trump body language. Can this marriage be saved?
https://futurism.com/the-byte/trump-body-language
Hegseth’s consensual defense collapses:
FULL POLICE REPORT
https://mediaite.com/a/djpag
A good bet Trump Cabinet picks are skipping background checks because it’s a crime to lie to the FBI.
Wouldn’t it be awkward for a president-elect found liable for sexual assault and for paying off a woman for sex to have to withdraw the nomination of someone accused of sexual assault and another who paid for sex.
craig, a little more about him, his work and what others say about the conclusions: Mouse Heaven or Mouse Hell? | Science History Institute [… examples not unlike what’s happening today…] Rodents have social hierarchies, with dominant alpha males controlling harems of females. Alphas establish dominance by fighting—wrestling and biting any challengers. Normally a mouse that loses a fight will scurry off to some distant nook to start over elsewhere. But in mouse utopia, the losing mice couldn’t escape. Calhoun called them “dropouts.” And because so few juveniles died, huge hordes of dropouts would gather in the center of the pen. They were full of cuts and ugly scars, and every so often huge brawls would break out—vicious free-for-alls of biting and clawing that served no obvious purpose. It was just senseless violence. (In earlier utopias involving rats, some dropouts turned to cannibalism.) Alpha males struggled, too. They kept their harems in private apartments, which they had to defend from challengers. But given how many mice survived to adulthood, there were always a dozen hotshots ready to fight. The alphas soon grew exhausted, and some stopped defending their apartments altogether. As a result, apartments with nursing females were regularly invaded by rogue males. The mothers fought back, but often to the detriment of their young. Many stressed-out mothers booted their pups from the nest early, before the pups were ready. A few even attacked their own young amid the violence or abandoned them while fleeing to different apartments, leaving the… Read more »
“…it’s a crime to lie to the FBI”.
craig, speaking of crimes and congressmen, query:
because it happened on the House floor, is a representative absolved from crimes of possession and display of personal pornography unrelated to legislation ?
https://x.com/i/status/1709765049051381761
No mouse stories here but I’ve always remembered this one about a gerbil. One day, my son brought a gerbil home to live with us. We put it in a cage. Some time later, the gerbil escaped. For the next six months, the animal ran frightened and wild through the house. So did we – chasing it.”There it is. Get it!” we’d scream, each time someone spotted the gerbil. I, or my son, would throw down whatever we were working on, race across the house, and lunge at the animal hoping to catch it.I worried about it, even when we didn’t see it. “This isn’t right,” I’d think. “I can’t have a gerbil running loose in the house. We’ve got to catch it. We’ve got to do something.”A small animal, the size of a mouse had the entire household in a tizzy.One day, while sitting in the living room, I watched the animal scurry across the hallway. In frenzy, I started to lunge at it, as I usually did, then I stopped myself.No, I said, I’m all done. If that animal wants to live in the nooks and crannies of this house, I’m going to let it. I’m done worrying about it. I’m done chasing it. It’s an irregular circumstance, but that’s just the way it’s going to have to be.I let the gerbil run past without reacting. I felt slightly uncomfortable with my new reaction – not reacting – but I stuck to it anyway.I got more comfortable with… Read more »
Keeping with the animal theme, here’s a joke (source unknown):
A MAGAt got out the Christmas decorations. He was setting up a nativity scene and threw out the Jews, Arabs, and foreigners.
All that was left was one jackass and a bunch of sheep.
Jamie, he’s timid as a mouse.
More Dictator stuff, all without Congress…
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2024/11/20/musk-ramaswamy-government-cuts/
‘Like nothing you’ve seen’: Trump team readies a flurry of executive actions for Day 1 https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-team-readies-flurry-executive-actions-day-1-rcna180898 via @nbcnews
yeah… I know we still have Thanksgiving… so what!
today’s meme…
https://www.politico.eu/article/angela-merkel-donald-trumo-memoir-book-us-germany-politics-cdu-pope-francis/
Gaetz withdrawing!
https://x.com/mattgaetz/status/1859649045553402285?t=ecTSfwPgOAZcth7M6n-ujg&s=19
Bye, bye Matt, we hardly knew ye.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/11/21/trump-administration-transition/
Wonder what he’ll do now? He doesn’t have an office anymore, right?
Don’t celebrate Gaetz exit too much. AG Rudy could be next.
Taking too much attention away from Elon.
Can he get his old job back? They really like him in Flora Bama.
The stalking horse has stumbled. Makes the other appointments safer.
Well, It is kinda early to be a lame duck, but it seems to be true. Is Trump going to learn the real meaning of checks and balances?
One thing that Musk fails to realize is unlike his corporations, there are many rules to follow if you want to change the world. He will have to “cross every t and dot every i is he wants to change the world. I don’t think he has that much patience. So, I look for a lot of screaming and yelling and in the end he will take his ball and go home.
I’m still in favor of letting Trump be Trump. The bastards voted him in they get what they deserve, I’m not fighting it any more I’m just making sure I protect me and mine.
Jack
Jamie,
Maybe, but now we get the real appointments. Or maybe not, we just get some other unqualified crazy. This is what happens when you elect a senile president.
Jack
Gaetz is the first in tRUMPsky’s unemployment line. Tens of thousands of government employees will be next.
Maybe they can be reemployed by Biden’s Infrastructure & Jobs Act…or is (F)Elon killing that, too?
Unemployed folks don’t spend money, businesses lose customers and reduce staff, unemployment balloons and our economy pops.
Christmas is coming and if those government employees are worried about their jobs, they won’t be spending much this year.
Dumb Adolf is already ruining the economy and he hasn’t even put his hand on one of his hybrid-heretic bibles to lie about upholding the US Constitution, again.
BiD
It is not as easy to fire a federal employee as it is a twitter employee. There are rules and this isn’t the first time that a president has tried to give his flunkies good government jobs. Been there, done that, and we have a rule in place just for this problem.
Jack
Gaetz should have served time by now for rape. Here in Ohio, every week men and a few women are sentenced to jail or prison for similar offenses. Now he will just go off and get a high 6-figure salary somewhere and continue his perversions. I was taught the USA is a classless society, and India’s class system is evil and cruel. We were fed bullshit stew. I would be happy not to ever see that Wolfman face of Gaetz again. Gaetz, now go get your shinebox!
bId – sfb shut down the government at Christmas time for about a month. I enjoyed the every night is movie night (I have a lot of DVDs). All was great until the marina lost power, then I went home. Now the real question, will OPM actually “fire” fed employees without a fight?
I am starting to see some results of my push to have a Transgender sit-in at the Capitol, it is being repeated by others! Yay.
BB – That shutdown in 2018 caused a loss of about $11 billion dollars. Depending on personal finances, some may not have enjoyed so much time off. Plus, it was just a shut down, not a purge.
ps – Good work on instigating a sit-in.
Jack – Adolf doesn’t give a crap about rules & regs. He doesn’t have to care since Congress and SCOTUS are teaming with MAGAts.
Oh, FFS! Is DiSantis going to have Gaetz fill Rubio’s Senate seat?
Bid
Right now we are stil a nation of laws and rules. He may think he doesn’t believe in rules but everybody underneath him has to believe or go to jail. As they explained to us when I worked for the juvenile court system. If you are following the law you have some immunity but if you are breaking the law all that goes out the window and your ass in hung out to dry. Good luck with getting Trump to give a damn.
Jack
Calling bs on MAGAt Mike Johnson and anyone else claiming scripture is anti-trans, and this guy also does a good job explaining gender, and the spectrum in biological sex.
*
Could this be right? A BlueSky user I am chatting with says about Gaetz, “As I understand it, he resigned from this session of congress. But since he was re-elected, he’ll be sworn in again in January. “
Craig – Hadn’t thought about that. I was thinking he’d get moved to Rubio’s Senate seat by DiSantis.
His closing statement did say he would continue to help Adolf/Vance.
BiD & Craig, either way he’s the proverbial (or should that be perverse) mole that keeps popping back up no matter how many whacks. he might opt for a cushy 4 yr appointment that doesn’t require senate approval. plus if DOTUS wants he’ll be granted the necessary clearances for god knows what mischief.
easy shoe-in now for Todd Blanche who’s already on deck as presumptive deputy AG nominee. senate approval won’t be much trouble (that is if there are no skeletons in the closet) considering his background according to wiki:
Does everyone remember Surgeon General, Jocelyn Elders, whose medical specialty was identifying intersex infants. She was forced from office for favoring distribution of contraceptives in schools. All that direct honesty was too much for politics.
Yes, Jamie, I remember her. Not talking about contraception does not prevent teen pregnancies.
nor did her talking about the reality of intersex babies prevent disbelief of and hateful violence toward them as adults
bId – that was a something I enjoyed because it gave me a break in several years of intense program development. At one point I was hospitalized with double pneumonia yet had a continuous stream of issues to handle. But, I made sure that my young co-workers were with back up funds (whether they knew from who or not).
Interesting convo with a TX friend who is in her 80s, and she is Hispanic. She doesn’t like Adolf, but voted for him because what little she saw of Harris left her with the impression that she was not a serious person. She wasn’t watching the rallies like some of us here, just late night TV and a few other interviews. When it comes down to it, a lot of things she said sounded like misogyny.
She is very worried by what she’s seen Adolf doing already, but doesn’t think he’ll have as much power as he thinks he does, despite holding Congress and SCOTUS.
She also thinks there will be a citizens’ uprising if things get too bad. She doesn’t think he’ll use the military on us, but thinks someone might actually try to take him out; she thinks Butler was staged.
Anyway, just interesting to hear her take. She’s very churchy and I assumed she’d vote Repug because of abortion, but that never came up. She’s starting to have buyer’s remorse.
BB – That was good of you to take care of your team, if needed.
What really got Jocelyn Elders in trouble was telling kids it was okay to masturbate.
BID, Texas will be okay because Golden Boy Musk has claimed it for himself. It’s us in the Blue States that need to worry. He will turn his full fury.
Craig – But, if he is sworn in under as he was re-elected, or if DiSantis had him replace Rubio, the whole can of worms about him would be re-opened.
Congressman or not, I want to see the report.
I’m thinking Gaetz was a red herring all along. If he’d gotten through, fine. But an easy sacrifice in the event to protect the rest of the crop of ne’er do wells. The Senators won’t get by with that move again.
Craig – I think that is correct. The important part is he has stated he will not be sworn in. His resignation is to cover they session and the next. The resignation is to leave his seat in this session, or left it. Separately he has stated, and his wife repeated that he will not be sworn in the next session. His wife said he was done with federal service. Now we know how much that means for magats and politicians, but it puts into action destantis getting an election started.
Reading between the lines
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/matt-gaetz-return-congress-after-withdrawing-ag-pick/story?id=116108799
Pam Bondi nominated for Attorney General
Gaetz was a set-up to fail. The rest will prove untouchable.
Watch Trump’s AG nominee Pam Bondi try to defend her anti-gay record to Anderson Cooper after the Pulse nightclub shooting (2016)..
https://www.texastribune.org/2024/11/19/texas-border-starr-county-ranch-trump-deportation/
“The Texas General Land Office is offering President-elect Donald Trump a 1,400-acre Starr County ranch as a site to build detention centers for his promised mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, according to a letter the office sent him Tuesday.”
“The state recently bought the land along the U.S.-Mexico border in the Rio Grande Valley and announced plans to build a border wall on it. The previous owner had not let the state construct a wall there and had “actively blocked law enforcement from accessing the property,” according to the letter the GLO sent Trump.”
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