Good things are great, but too much of a good thing can be bad. Especially when you can't get enough. On The Frontal Cortex, Jonah Lehrer introduces us to ChatRoulette, a website that allows you to get "rejected, propositioned and yelled at" by other live strangers with webcams. With a single click, users can dump whomever they're looking for a new face, hopefully. Jonah says it "reminds me of Vegas, where people are willing to endure big losses for the occasional thrill of a surprising gain." Of course, if chocolate is your choice compulsion, gain is to be expected. Jessica Palmer on Bioephemera describes an experiment where mice subjected themselves to electric shocks so they could eat some chocolate, but only if they had once been starved. Now healthy and well-fed, these mice were willing to suffer if they could just get some extra calories. Finally, read about a few other favored habit-formers on Neuron Culture and DrugMonkey. David Dobbs discusses the last things any civilized expedition would run out of, and DrugMonkey digs through case reports for a rare and unpleasant consequence of chronic cannabis consumption.
Links below the fold.
- ChatRoulette on The Frontal Cortex
- Cocoa Madness: aberrant chocolate-seeking mice run rampant! on Bioephemera
- Shackleton's whiskey; Powell's coffee on Neuron Culture
- Cannabis Hyperemesis on Drug Monkey