We march into February with another undiscovered nugget of knowledge, today coming courtesy of my sister, who has informed me of the following:
Rats can laugh.
The most succint statement to date, but as ever, there's a world of ambiguity behind it. Apparently a scientist by the name of Jaak Panksepp (hey, if you were suggesting rodent wit, you'd use a false name too) put together a report that claims that several animals, including chimps, dogs and indeed rats, make noises akin to laughter when playing with each other (not like that). You can hear the rat noises here, where they are repeatedly pestered by a 1970s Open University physics lecturer; to me it sounds more like high-pitched growling, like the Bee Gees having a row.
To clarify, the theory being put forward is not that our animal brethren like to share a witty anecdote over a glass of Merlot (though we do know a certain mongoose who liked a good laugh). Instead, the suggestion is that laughter is an intrinsic human expression that may have existed within us before we discovered language. Seeing as it doesn't involve words, that seems pretty plausible. Jaak does push the boat out a little too far by claiming that any rodent humour would be "heavily laced with slapstick", which is pretty much the stupidest thing I've ever heard. My personal belief is that they're not laughing at anything, which does make them similar to humans; humans who've just puffed their way through a £20 bag of mungo weed and are sat watching an omnibus of Two Pints of Lager. The rat-stoner theory gathers pace as we witness them here, making a midday dash to the local KFC.
A couple of updates from previous posts:
Regarding my anti-Gillian McKeith rant, I have recently discovered, to my utter delight, that she is no longer allowed to call herself Dr Gillian McKeith, because she got her degree from 'an unaccredited U.S. college', i.e. from eBay. "The only things getting thinner here are her credentials..."
Regarding smart people not getting decent degrees, here's the other side of the coin: George W. Bush went to Harvard and Yale, and attained a degree and an MBA, despite being, by some distance, the stupidest person who has ever lived.
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