Posted by Chris Jensen |
Jun. 16, 2008 07:43AM PST
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FILED UNDER: News. Science.
Love the smell of coffee? Most do, even if they don't like drinking the substance that has powered a billion Internet blogs, this one included. According to scientists reporting in the Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry, the scent of coffee has a surprising effect on rats that may mimic the effect in humans.
Researchers found that sleep-deprived rats exposed to the aroma of coffee beans displayed 13 genetic differences, including antioxidant activity that protects nerve cells from stress-related damage, protein fate, cell rescue, defense, virulence, cell communication and energy metabolism.
To sum up:
In conclusion, the roasted coffee bean aroma changes the mRNA and protein expression levels of the rat brain, providing for the first time clues to the potential antioxidant or stress relaxation activities of the coffee bean aroma.
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(Source: ACS Publications)
Tags rats, research, caffeine, coffee
Posted by Chris Jensen |
Apr. 07, 2008 08:50AM PST
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FILED UNDER: News. Science.
William Roberts of the University of Western Ontario has published his research that explores whether or not animals have a human-like sense of time with concepts of past and future.
The research team, led by Roberts, designed an experiment in which rats visited the ‘arms’ of a maze at different times of day. Some arms contained moderately desirable food pellets, and one arm contained a highly desirable piece of cheese. Rats were later returned to the maze with the cheese removed on certain trials and with the cheese replaced with a pellet on others.
All told, three groups of rats were tested in the research using three varying cues: when, how long ago or when plus how long ago.
Only the cue of how long ago food was encountered was used successfully by the rats.
Time is overrated anyway.
“This research,” said Roberts, “supports the theory I introduced that animals are stuck in time, with no sense of time extending into the past or future.”
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(Source: Science Daily)
Tags research, experiment, time, rats
