Laboratory Rats

Science was my bugaboo in school. I flunked Botany twice. Just now I spelled that science 'Botony,' probably out of resentment.

But I really truly wanted to graduate so I took a course on the brain in the Psychology department. The course bottom line: the brain naturally produces a chemical, or bunch of chemicals (I only got a 'B') that act as a natural mood alterer, a 'narcotic.' So, it's not entirely surprising that a poppy (?)* in Colombia produces a chemical which can duplicate that human-body-produced chemical. See? I really do have a problem with science, as fascinating as it really is. *(Also Coca) >Main Entry: >co·caine
>Pronunciation: kO-'kAn, 'kO-"
>Function: noun
>Date: 1874
>: a bitter crystalline alkaloid C17H21NO4 obtained from coca >leaves that is used medically as a topical anesthetic and illicitly >for its euphoric effects and that may result in a compulsive >psychological need.

The course showed what a rat will endure in the lab to get another pellet containing cocaine. The rat is trained to press on a button, just like us clicking on where to click on, to receive each pellet. Gradually the power of an electric shock is increased, after each pellet is given, so that the rat must endure ever increasing shocks from the platform on which he must stand in order to reach the clicking-on button, with each increasingly strong dose from the pellet.  So urgent is the rats compulsion to consume each pellet that it will endure a lethal electric shock to get one last ingestion of cocaine.

Remember the repeated news clips of Robert Downey Jr. in court looking totally bewildered by what had happened to him? He might have skipped science in school.

I've begun to wonder about all the clicking we do Online. What's really the 'Reward'? I can't be the only one who has seen it, AOL advertising, advertising allowed by AOL, an oblong square in which we are promised a "Reward" if we click on the site? You've clicked? Btw, I'm not paid to write this post.

Barry