Thursday, March 24, 2016

Miniature Crustacean Atrocity

I don't know what the cost of this research in blood and treasure, but just the knowledge that Prozac in the Water Makes Fighting Fish More Mellow is priceless. 
Across all the behavioral tests, fish exposed to the antidepressant were less bold. They stayed in one place, explored their environment less, and were more hesitant to approach other fish. Their behavior was also more erratic. A higher dose of the drug caused a more dramatic effect.
Give a man a fish and you feed him for a day;  teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime.

 Give a Fish an Antidepressant, and...  I dunno. It sits at the bottom of your 10-gallon aquarium tank near the aerating ornamental treasure chest and stares at it's fin?

 Let us continue...
In an earlier study, Dzieweczynski drugged female fighting fish with fluoxetine and saw similar results. The effect was a bit stronger in male fish, she says—maybe because they have higher levels of serotonin or testosterone to begin with.
It is not mentioned in the article whether Dzieweczynski, a psychologist at the University of New England, knows Bill Cosby, but I'll wager you a box of pudding pops there will be a law suit for plagiarizing from his research experiments.

Which reminds me of a story from my late teens, with a slight variation of this experiment. Instead of administering varying degrees of fluoxetine on Siamese fighting fish in a controlled environment, a 'friend' used a few pours from his tequilla into my Sea-Monkey aquarium.

Sea Monkeys are an extremely hardy brine shrimp said to be able to survive dehydrated stasis, water boarding and long term exposure to radiation from space travel, but a Tuesday night Lockhead Street party (my parent's bowling night) in the southend of Flint in the late 70's? They never had a chance.

Here is a google street view of my childhood abode, and scene of the aforementioned miniature crustacean atrocity. It looks a little different and is missing some shrubs and a tree or two, but it is the home of so many great memories.

8 comments:

  1. I, too, committed small crustacean atrocities, but not with vodka or other mind-altering substances. Apparently, I'm a serial killer of not just plants, but also Sea Monkeys. I don't even need an antidepressant or Flint water.

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  2. Ah yes, I remember it well growing up on the clean side of this block. Have you always spelled Lochhead incorrectly? Seems like I recall one street sign was spelled Lochhead, and the one at the other end of the block read Lockhead. I do happen to know that the official City records are Lochhead. Lochhead fu or Lockhead fu, I suppose it doesn't really matter when you are a Lochkhead fu.

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  3. cube, don't get me started on the dreaded ant farm :) AND you made me laugh again! Stop doing that! jk... keep that sh*t up.

    dr h, Dell foo clean side? And yes, I do spell Lockhead Street the way God intended, with a hard "K". And it's Street, not Avenue, regardless of what the Flint democrat politicians and city directories now say.

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  4. I think all Michigan neighborhoods of a certain vintage look the same.
    I'm your neighbor.

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  5. Hi neighbor! Yes you are correct, but our cinder blocks were the best!

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  6. Looks like a decent place to grow up.

    And you've come up with the answer. We just need to get an aerosol version Prozac and supply massive does of it to Washington DC, then anywhere vermin reside. Take a raise out of petty cash my friend !

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  7. Kid, yep! Pelosi, Reid, Schumer and bunch already resemble fish flopping on the sidewalk. They just need to take the Prozac in order to find out what's in the Prozac.

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