Why are male mice afraid of bananas?:
Researchers from McGill University have identified a form of chemical signaling in mice to defend their offspring. The researchers found that proximity to pregnant and lactating female mice increased stress hormones in males and even decreased their sensitivity to pain.
"The findings have important implications for improving the reliability and reproducibility of experiments involving mice. This is yet another example of a previously unknown factor in the lab environment that can affect the results of scientific studies," says Jeffrey Mogil, a Professor in the Department of Psychology at McGill University and E. P. Taylor Chair in Pain Studies.
According to co-author Sarah Rosen, "what is likely happening is that female mice are signaling to males who might be considering attacking their babies that they will defend them vigorously. It's the threat of the possible upcoming fight that causes the stress."
"Mice have richer communication with one another than we think; it's just that a lot of it's through smell," says Mogil. The researchers started looking for the olfactory chemical responsible. Several odorants were identified, but one, n-pentyl acetate, which is released in the urine of pregnant and lactating female mice, was especially effective at producing stress in male mice.
"Curiously, n-pentyl acetate is also responsible for the unique smell of bananas. After a quick trip to the supermarket for some banana oil, we were able to confirm that the smell of banana extract stressed the male mice just as much as the pregnant females," says co-author Lucas Lima.
Journal Reference:
Sarah F. Rosen et al, Olfactory exposure to late-pregnant and lactating mice causes stress-induced analgesia in male mice, Science Advances (2022) (DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abi9366)
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @09:13AM (8 children)
It works the same way in humans.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by Rosco P. Coltrane on Saturday May 28 2022, @09:27AM (7 children)
Not quite. Lactating and pregnant females are okay. It's their offsprings that are unbearable to males.
If you're not the damn thing's dad, there are few sounds more awful to a man than a crying baby. Even chalk slowly sliding at an awkward angle against slate or a dentist's drill is more bearable.
I'm fully convinced it's hard-coded in the brain, because no man would have any valid reasons to suddenly hate the guts of random crying babies, and by extension, their mothers who can't realistically do anything about it but suddenly seem like they're letting them cry on purpose.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @09:35AM
I think it's that noisy babies remind them of their superiors at work.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @11:06AM (4 children)
Consider it as the result of 250,000+ years of evolution from living in caves with clan-groups/extended-families.
The quickest way to make a infant start crying is to make it think it's been abandoned and the tigers are gonna get it. Cue the noise that evolution optimized both in the infant and the adults' brains to get the most attention.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by Opportunist on Saturday May 28 2022, @11:42AM (3 children)
Explain to me, though, why every single other animal young learned that survival is dependent on being fucking QUIET. Only ours are whining buoys if they don't get what they want.
There is a clear drawback to being the apex predator.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @01:13PM
What part of "cave" didn't you understand?
For that 250,000+ years, an infants' genetic disposition is to be constantly surrounded by family. No family around => bad. A human baby alone is as good as dead, as they can't feed themselves, unlike most mammal infants. Best-result action: scream for help from a family member who hopefully isn't too far away. (And note that baby screaming travels a long distance.)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @05:37PM
A lot of those animals have gestation periods long enough that they're quasi-fully functional at birth, or they are born into a species that in general doesn't make much noise. Also, most of them aren't near or at the top of the food chain the way that humans have been for millenia.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2022, @03:39AM
You don't have kids, eh?
Almost every baby that's carried and walked with will hush up fast and stay silent unless very hungry, soiled, startled, or scared. Why? Because predators at camp have already found the camp, and a loud baby means nothing, but predators passed while travelling are best not roused.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @01:59PM
And what is even more obvious, is when they put condoms for sale in the check out lines.
Candies put at children`s level where the sale is lost from stern parental control will create crying baby thus affecting males in the line up to purchase condoms.
Win-Win
The psychologist who came up with that one is a genius.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @09:22AM (1 child)
Same reason Runaway is afraid of them. They might be packing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @07:32PM
Do they have banana clips?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @02:02PM
So how long before we have this for use in combat missions where the males need to be fully charged for a great kill?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @02:30PM (2 children)
Straight human males also seem to be afraid of bananas. Or secretly coveting them.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @03:15PM (1 child)
Why is Trump afraid of bananas?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2022, @05:39AM
Because of the mushroom. And the Thinning hair! (Featured at the NRA's Houston School Shootings Celebration)
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday May 28 2022, @03:22PM (3 children)
... and some scary spiders ...
Everyone knows bananas come with spiders and they're apparently easy to smell (the bananas, not the spiders)
When I was a school kid I worked at a food store and the produce manager kept a giant spider he found in the bananas as a "pet" for about a week mostly to scare the shit out of coworkers.
I thought they fumigated bananas to prevent this kind of thing, but I guess not.
Anyway mice are quite small compared to humans so "lol at the venom" for us could mean "dead" to a little mouse.
Possibly in some evolutionary handwaving, the net effect of chilling with killer spiders in an excellent source of junk food is slightly net positive for preggo mice and slightly net negative for male mice. Its not a completely unreasonable hypothesis. An in situation ecological study would be non-trivial, but might prove or disprove it.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Saturday May 28 2022, @03:26PM (1 child)
Oh I hate to follow up like this "but no edit button" so I just came up with an interesting hypothesis: What if something in bananas, maybe as crude and simple as potassium ratio, maybe some crazy organic chemistry monster chem, is like prenatal vitamins but for mice? Then a mutation making the males avoid bananas and the females DGAF would be a strong net positive.
Not just mere empty calories like bananas are for us primates, but "something" good for preggo mice. I can't call them female mice or girlie mice for political reasons so I'll stick to uterus-having mice or birthing-mice as my term in the future (thanks for that valued contribution to western culture, alphabet people and parenthesis people)
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Saturday May 28 2022, @10:19PM
Just curious, how much do you spend on diapers and Preparation H in any given week?
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday May 28 2022, @05:42PM
That's not that much different from Arachaphobia, although that spider came in a casket with the body of the person it killed and somehow managed to reproduce with a much smaller house spider.
It took me years before I was able to eat cereal from a container that wasn't completely sealed against anything getting in or our when I wasn't able to monitor it.
(Score: 2) by Joe Desertrat on Sunday May 29 2022, @01:33AM (3 children)
Most mice don't have access to guns or 16 ton weights, so they are helpless against an attack with a banana.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday May 29 2022, @06:13AM
Is that why so many human males became afraid of the common cold after 2020?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday May 30 2022, @03:10PM (1 child)
Most mice have access to pointed sticks
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday June 03 2022, @11:46PM
Shut up!