Laughing rats

A group of scientists has now suggested that laughing can be detected in mammalian species as simple as rats. This discussion of laughing animals is discussed at Alan Boyle's blog at MSNBC:

How do you graph the evolution of a laugh? Researchers tickled babies and six different kinds of apes, quantified their giggles, and found that the patterns fit a classic evolutionary tree.

Those patterns hint at the ancient origins of human hilarity and suggest that other social species - including apes, dogs and rats - really, truly laugh as well.

Or check out a laughing gorilla here. Why do we laugh? Mostly, we laugh at things that are not funny. See here, for more information on the psychology of laughing.

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Frank Schaeffer lays, and takes, the blame for murder –

I found this an interesting response to George Tiller's murder. Frank Schaeffer, a reformed evangelical, argues that the hate speech continually spewed by the religious right regarding abortion set the stage for George Tiller's murder, and other abortionists before him. He still expresses disgust at late-term abortion, and while I am more likely to agree with that, I do believe there are situations in which that choice is the only one that makes sense. Painful, horribly so, but sometimes the only choice is.

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Darfur, lest we forget –

Bob Herbert, in the NY Times, wrote this week of a new report on the continuing human catastrophe in Darfur. In describing why he reported on what, to some, is old news, he reminded us "about the dangers inherent in indifference to the suffering of others. Stories of atrocities on the scale of those coming out of Darfur cannot be told too often."

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Abortion Doctor George Tiller Killed at Church

George Tiller, a Kansas doctor who performed abortions, some of them late-term, was shot this morning as he entered his church for services. Read the story here - and then someone explain how one justifies murder again?

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