Health and Tech: Mice paradise that turned into a hell
Universe 25 was experiment by John Calhoun
Hyderabad: For centuries, laboratory experiments on mice have been the foundation based on which scientists and researchers worldwide have achieved significant medical breakthroughs and developed their research hypothesis. Even today, animal model experiments play a vital role in advancement of medical technology.
In the last few weeks, however, a medical experiment that was conducted between 1968 and 1973 by an American researcher John B. Calhoun on mice has suddenly started receiving attention across multiple social media platforms. The reason for sudden interest in Calhoun’s work, which was titled by him as ‘Universe 25’, is due to the eerie resemblance that the experiment has to the present-day society.
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Mice utopia or hell
The mice experiment of Calhoun, who was a researcher in US-based National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), was essentially aimed at creating a perfect paradise for rats. The researcher created a utopia for rats wherein they had access to unlimited food, water, nesting supplies and no predators. They were placed in a huge enclosure that was divided into multiple chambers or small apartments.
The experiment was to observe behaviour of rats in the paradise and even perhaps understand human behaviour. Today, researchers worldwide believe that the end-results of the Universe 25 experiment provided a model of how societies can potentially collapse in the future.
Mice paradise
On his 25th iteration of mice reproduction (dubbed as Universe 25), Calhoun placed four pairs of mice that in a short time began to reproduce. Since it was paradise, the rats did not have to forage, which resulted in excessive sexual intercourse. As a result, about every 55 days, the population doubled. However, this is where, things started to change.
When the population of the mice hit 620, the doubling slowdown around every 145 days, as the mouse society began to hit problems. The mice split off into groups, and those that could not find a role in these groups found themselves with nowhere to go. With not much space available, the excess mice had nowhere to emigrate and had no social role to fill and became isolated.
Males who failed, withdrew physically and psychologically became inactive and aggregated in large pools near the centre of the floor and did not interact with other rats. Later, a new category of mice titled ‘beautiful ones’ developed, which were segregated from the others.
Being separated from the rest of the Universe 25 mice, the beautiful ones made no contributions to the society, gave no help in mating, mothering, marking territory, etc. Instead, they spent all time feeding, drinking, grooming, and sleeping.
Eventually, the beautiful ones outnumbered the more aggressive mice. Soon, due to no interest in mating, or building a sustainable society, the mouse population began to die. The Universe 25 experiment started in 1968 and by 1973, less than five years after the experiment started, the population crashed from a high of 2,200 to zero.
Researchers, geneticists, scientists and sociologists in recent weeks have pointed out that the Universe 25 experiment could provide the window into the demise of the humankind while others have also questioned the experiment itself, as it was conducted in a manufactured environment.