Hawt female mouse on female mouse action

[Cramulus]

blind studies don't necessarily require additional staff. For example, you can assign each mouse a code number and when you collect data, you only look at the code number, not the group to which that mouse belongs.



errr I just realized I've been meaning to say "blind" when I've been saying "double blind". But to be fair, the mice don't know which group they're in so it is technically double-blind. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

blind studies don't necessarily require additional staff. For example, you can assign each mouse a code number and when you collect data, you only look at the code number, not the group to which that mouse belongs.



errr I just realized I've been meaning to say "blind" when I've been saying "double blind". But to be fair, the mice don't know which group they're in so it is technically double-blind. 

The researchers I know who work with mice actually do know their individual mice on sight, so that's not a very effective way of doing it when you're working with limited mice.

[Cramulus]

ANYWAY, laboratory constraints are not a good excuse to use sloppy data collection methods

that's what grad students are for

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

ANYWAY, laboratory constraints are not a good excuse to use sloppy data collection methods

that's what grad students are for

But... those researchers ARE grad students. Aren't they? Or did I miss something?

[Nephew Twiddleton]

ANYWAY, laboratory constraints are not a good excuse to use sloppy data collection methods

that's what grad students are for

But... those researchers ARE grad students. Aren't they? Or did I miss something?

Usually there are a few senior authors involved in any given study, mainly for financial support.

[Jasper]

Perhaps, since the behavior is difficult to nail down, they should have used the term "questioning" instead.

[Golden Applesauce]

Perhaps, since the behavior is difficult to nail down, they should have used the term "questioning" instead.

More seriously though, I know that gerbils often mount each other as part of dominance displays.  Gerbils are a lot more social than mice, so I dunno if that carries over.  But I totally thought that I had found the secret clan of gay gerbils for a while.  Scientists can probably tell the difference though?

Of course, the news media will simply report this as a discovery of the gay gene, and will be unable to understand that sometimes people dispute scientific results for reasons other than ideology.  Or, for that matter, that finding a difference in the rates of a few specific behaviors does not amount to sexuality.  Anybody know if humans are more attracted to the urine of people of the gender they most appreciate?

I think we'll find that human sexuality (at least on the "which kind of genital do you prefer" level) is strongly influenced by genetics, but there is no way in hell it's a single gene.

[Golden Applesauce]

The female x female counting seems to have been double blind.

Test for masculine behaviour

In masculinization behavior tests, the female subject was placed alone in her own cage to adapt for 15 min. Subsequently, an E2-primed C57BL/6 partner female was introduced, and the number of mounts and intromission-like behaviors shown by the female subject were recorded for 30 min. The occurrences of behaviors were counted once the subject animal was separated by more than half the body length from its partner. The behaviors were scored by an observer uninformed of the experimental treatments.

[Nast]

Even still, there isn't a gene for FABULOUS.

[Triple Zero]

ANYWAY, laboratory constraints are not a good excuse to use sloppy data collection methods

that's what grad students are for

But... those researchers ARE grad students. Aren't they? Or did I miss something?

Dunno, friend of mine did her PHD research on whether mice smoking during pregnancy got their babies a higher chance of asthma (outcome = it does), if you're doing PHD research you're not a grad student or are you?

She's quit science now and doing CSI school. Her (ex) coworkers were completely puzzled about how she could think to leave the holy Cathedral of Science. (hint: it's not got a lot of career possibility at least not ones she cared to pursue).

If questions about how mice research goes, I could ask her.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

ANYWAY, laboratory constraints are not a good excuse to use sloppy data collection methods

that's what grad students are for

But... those researchers ARE grad students. Aren't they? Or did I miss something?

Dunno, friend of mine did her PHD research on whether mice smoking during pregnancy got their babies a higher chance of asthma (outcome = it does), if you're doing PHD research you're not a grad student or are you?

She's quit science now and doing CSI school. Her (ex) coworkers were completely puzzled about how she could think to leave the holy Cathedral of Science. (hint: it's not got a lot of career possibility at least not ones she cared to pursue).

If questions about how mice research goes, I could ask her.

Could be either. This kind of research paper is usually done by grad or postgrad students.

[ñͤͣ̄ͦ̌̑͗͊͛͂͗ ̸̨̨̣̺̼̣̜͙͈͕̮̊̈́̈͂͛̽͊ͭ̓͆ͅé ̰̓̓́ͯ́́͞]

Interesting stuff, and I appreciate the call for more rigorous science, Cram, basic stuff like double-blinding studies should be a given.

If I am a gay man and my partner and I provide essential social support for my sister and her kid that allows that child to go on and spawn more kids, do my genes win? Oh snap, yes they fucking do. Suck my genetically successful non-reproducing dick, Christians!