Hide-and-seek with rats
Rats can be trained to play hide-and-seek, new research has found—and they love the game so much it makes them leap and squeak in joy. A team of neuroscientists in Germany taught adolescent male rats to play in a 300-square-foot room fitted with boxes and barriers behind which the rodents, or researchers, could hide. The rats started the game inside a box that could be remotely opened. They quickly learned that if the door was closed, they were seeking; if it was open, they were hiding. When they located the human player, or were found themselves, the rats would be rewarded with a tummy rub. The rodents developed hiding strategies: going where a human had previously hidden or holing up in a box that was opaque rather than transparent. While playing, the rats let out high-pitched giggles—inaudible to humans—and made so-called joy jumps, both of which are believed to be expressions of happiness.
The study reveals the complexities of play and of the animals that enjoy it, study leader Michael Brecht tells the Los Angeles Times. “We should have more appreciation for our playful capacities.”
second-ever sighting of an interstellar interloper, after the space rock known as ‘Oumuamua was spotted on its way out of our solar system in 2017. Provisionally named C/2019 Q4 (Borisov) in honor of the amateur astronomer, Gennady Borisov, the comet appears to following a hyperbolic flight path. That essentially means the object is traveling too fast to have been captured by the gravity of the sun, which is why scientists are confident the comet came from outside our solar system. Unlike ‘Oumuamua, which was small and faint, the new comet is up to 10 miles wide and about six times brighter. It has also been spotted on its way into the solar system, rather than on its way out, and so scientists will likely have at least a year to analyze it. Gregory Laughlin, an astronomer at Yale, tells ScientificAmerican.com that close observation of the comet should provide a “detailed survey of a planetary building block from an alien solar system.”
genes from the release strain would not get into the general population because offspring would die,” senior author Jeffrey Powell tells The Scientist. “That obviously was not what happened.” Powell and his team speculate that the added genetic diversity could result “in a more robust population.” Oxitec says the Yale study contains “false” and “unsubstantiated” claims and has called for a retraction. The controversy could deter local communities from giving the green light to future open-field trials.