Saturday, February 2, 2013

Egos stroked, Hah!

We at Riddled Research (Inc.) Ltd. (Liberia) are no strangers to having the fruits of our labours stolen from under the bed, so to speak. No, we don't have any of what you call "evidence" of this but let us just say that the Dream Machine is reverse engineerable or was until Greenish Hugh stuck a fork in it. "It's dream toast" we said. But no one listens.
Normally we shrug this off with a "Hey Nonny No" and lawyers up the wazoo, but this time it hurts, my friends, it stings. Last year some time we sent off the usual pile of grant applications to Funnyscience.com and were agreeably surprised when the Fendleton Little Old Ladies Club offered us $150 to research the affects of stroking cats. Tossing aside the offers of long-lost Nigerian brothers-in-law we began to formulate the Research Project. Mrs Cat and Mrs Spat were not all that keen on the joining the team and we respected their rights as Furred New Zealanders to opt out. Also they bit and scratched.
Thus we had suitable test animals arranged, a Guinea pig, a ferret, two Gerbils and a rooster called Derek. People were engaged, on a roster system to stroke the animals and record observations as per.
Fig.1: 
Observation of stroking animals.
Observer: A.Kiwi
Time: 0.002 to 2.220 (technical note: Mickey Mouses' Big hand has fallen off)
Stroking regime: Standard. 3 stroked forard 3 strokes sternard. (Technical note: WTF?)
Notes: That fecking Derek is on borrowed time. Guinea pig wheezing,  does nothing, gerbils run around on wheel. They are scared of a sock monster and reject it's stroking. Ferret is psychotic, not touching it.
Imagine our Chagall when we find this in our inbox this very morning. Gazumped!!!
Bleedin' amateurs look at this tosh:
neurons are activated by massage-like stroking of hairy skin, but not by noxious punctate mechanical stimulation. By contrast, a different population of C fibres expressing MRGPRD was activated by pinching but not by stroking
We were just about to embark on the noxious punctate section of the work and had Mrs Miggins researching a special pie to throw at the little blighters. But now dreams of glory are dashed from our grasp by overpriced medical show ponies. This means you MR. GPRD!!
On the bright side it's Coq au Vin in the staff cafe today. 


12 comments:

ifthethunderdontgetya™³²®© said...

Purrhaps you could enlist this tiny researcher?
~

mikey said...

MRGPRD?

Must Return Good Pets - Record Damage.

Ahh, a reminder to Another Kiwi to keep notes of the limb count on the Ferret...

tigris said...

But now dreams of glory are dashed

DREAM MACHINE!

Substance McGravitas said...

These neurons exclusively innervate hairy skin with large terminal arborizations

Horrifying. Death by rubber tree.

Ralph Henry said...

You guys are great! Keep up the good work.

Big Bad Bald Bastard said...

The Fendleton Little Old Ladies Club offered us $150 to research the affects of stroking cats.

I think you misread their cover letter, now get down to the work you were hired to perform, you sexy gigolos!

Smut Clyde said...

Also relevant:
---------------------------------
Materials
Five photographs were used in the study. The photographs, reproduced here, display a range of different types of bearded men. (As noted above, one type of bearded man was, however, excluded from use in this study.)

The test subjects were female cats, all between the ages of four and six. 214 cats participated in the study. Three cats died during the study, due to causes unrelated to the bearded men. Fifteen cats gave birth while viewing the photographs.[2]

Methods
Each cat was exposed to the photographs. One photograph was shown at a time. Each photograph was visible for a span of twenty seconds. The photographs were presented in the same order to each cat.

While each cat was viewing the photographs, it was held by a laboratory assistant. To ensure that the cats were not influenced by stroking or other unconscious cues from the assistant, the assistant was anesthetized prior to each session. The cats' reactions were assessed for changes in pulse rate, respiration, eye dilation, fur shed rate, and qualitative behavior.

Hamish Mack said...

Assistants were as anaesthetised as newts and would not stop singing "T'was on the Good Ship Venus"

tigris said...

Three cats died during the study, due to causes unrelated to the bearded men.

OR SO THEY CLAIM.

ckc (not kc) said...

...was that fur shed rate the standard mg fur/g cat/sec?

ckc (not kc) said...

... or the deprecated cm fur/cm2 cat/sec?

M. Bouffant said...

In the Army it's 1600 hrs.
In the Navy it's eight bells.
In the Air Force it's four o'clock, & in the Marine Corps, Mickey's big hand is on the twelve & his little hand is on the four.