Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

Scientists Give MDMA to an Octopus

posted by takyon on Friday September 21 2018, @07:11PM   Printer-friendly
from the Molly-bathing-for-fun dept.

An Anonymous Coward writes:

Scientists have discovered that your ordinary, everyday octopus can get "high" on MDMA just like humans. While intoxicated with "molly", an octopus is likely to be more social and friendly towards others, changing from being antisocial to highly social, much like how the drug affects humans.

Human and octopus lineages are separated by over 500 million years of evolution and show divergent anatomical patterns of brain organisation, which makes this find surprising. This may make the octopus an attractive test subject for future drug trials.

In order to test the theory that an octopus is affected by MDMA in the same way as a human, an octopus was submerged in a tank of water mixed with MDMA, and later put into a series of three connected chambers, one of which had a caged octopus underneath. The stoned octopus chose to spend its time trying to play with the caged octopus, in a complete reversal of sober octopus nature.

A Conserved Role for Serotonergic Neurotransmission in Mediating Social Behavior in Octopus (open, DOI: 10.1016/j.cub.2018.07.061) (DX)

Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Scientists Give MDMA to an Octopus | Log In/Create an Account | Top | 36 comments | Search Discussion
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.

  • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Friday September 21 2018, @08:07PM (5 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Friday September 21 2018, @08:07PM (#738324) Journal

    Scientists Give MDMA to an Octopus

    You forgot the air-quotes around "scientist."

    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  
    Total Score:   2  

  • (Score: 3, Touché) by takyon on Friday September 21 2018, @08:08PM

    by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Friday September 21 2018, @08:08PM (#738325) Journal

    ^ "Commenter"

    --
    [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @08:09PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday September 21 2018, @08:09PM (#738326)

    Shhh. This is how we encourage the young'uns to become "scientists".

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @11:48AM (2 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 22 2018, @11:48AM (#738522)

    They had white lab coats! So, yeah. Scientists. I think one said something about piling it higher and deeper. They know a tonne, that's for sure. Not sure why they thought drugging a poor defenceless cephalopodian would help but here we are.

    • (Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday September 22 2018, @02:03PM (1 child)

      by takyon (881) <takyonNO@SPAMsoylentnews.org> on Saturday September 22 2018, @02:03PM (#738537) Journal

      Again we pretend that giving MDMA to an octopus is the worst thing ever or nothing was learned from the experiment.

      I wonder what the scientists who don't publish their findings are doing.

      --
      [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]