Health & Science

The agony of the boiled lobster

That scream you hear when you place a live lobster into a pot of boiling water is just the air escaping from its innards. But make no mistake, says new research, your lobster is feeling the agony of being boiled to death. Some scientists—and most lobster lovers—have long contended that with their primitive neural systems, crustaceans such as crabs and lobsters cannot feel pain. But a new study on hermit crabs in Northern Ireland has placed that theory into question. Researchers found that after they zapped the crabs with electric shocks, the animals did more than simply recoil in a reflexive manner—afterward, they exhibited stress reactions such as grooming (scratching their bellies with their legs) and tapping against the undersides of their shells, much like a human being might lick a burned finger. What’s more, the crabs seemed to remember the pain. Even after the crabs migrated to other shells, their stress behaviors continued. As with other animals, study author Robert Elwood tells Discovery News, pain alerts the crab to tissue-damaging injuries and protects it by provoking such “a huge negative emotion or motivation that it learns to avoid that situation in the future.’’ He found that when shocked crabs were given aspirin, they acted relieved, and their stress-reducing behaviors subsided. In a separate study in which crabs had their legs twisted off, the stress response was so profound that the crabs died, even though they did not need the missing limbs.

Five pills in one

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Heart patients may soon be able to throw away their plastic pill counters, says the Associated Press. People with America’s most common set of cardiovascular symptoms will soon have access to a “polypill” with a potent combination of five medications. An experimental version of a polypill, containing three different blood pressure medications, a cholesterol-lowering medication (a statin), and low-dose aspirin, showed surprisingly good results in an experimental study in India. The polypill will consist of generic medications and be very cheap—costing less than $15 a month—and will offer a psychological benefit as well, says Dr. James Stein of the University of Wisconsin-Madison. “If you take any medicines, you know that every pill you see in your hand makes you feel five years older,” Stein says. Patients often respond by skipping doses of their meds. In theory, the polypill will produce greater medication “compliance” among patients.

Flogging your way to love

Sadomasochism may seem like a puzzling way for couples to express their affection, but a new study shows that couples who spank or tie each other up feel closer afterward, says New Scientist. Researchers at Northern Illinois University monitored 58 men and women who enjoy S&M while they engaged in spanking, bondage, and flogging. As they began to engage in these activities, the couples showed an increase in stress hormones. But once the experience was over, couples said that they felt closer to each other than when they’d started. British psychologist Richard Wiseman, who did not take part in the study, says it was probably the shared activity that brought the couples together, not the S&M itself. “It doesn’t have to be tying up your partner,” he says. “It could be something as simple as cooking a meal together or even doing the housework as a duo.”

Simulating a mission to Mars

In 20 years, astronauts might make the very first flight to Mars. The trip across 35 million miles of space is expected to take about three months each way, raising worries about the mental health of astronauts cooped up in a small craft for such an extended period of time. Will they go stir-crazy? Get sick of each other and wind up brawling? To find out, the European and Russian space agencies this week locked six volunteers from France, Germany, and Russia inside a cramped, mock spacecraft at a Moscow research facility for a 105-day simulation of a mission to Mars. The faux astronauts were equipped with enough food and water to last the three-plus months, as they share a small living space, gym, and medical module. Their only refuge from one another will be individual 5-by-7-foot bedrooms. It’s “like a real space flight without the weightlessness and the danger to our lives,” Sergei Ryazansky, the mission leader, tells The New York Times. “On the inside, we will have a lack of incoming information, so it’s the science of sensory deprivation.”

Scientists will be monitoring each volunteer’s physical condition and sleep-wake cycles, and also will be on the lookout for signs of mental stress. In one 1999 simulation of an Earth orbit mission at the same Moscow institute, a male Russian’s attempt to kiss a female Canadian colleague threw the group into turmoil, creating bad feelings all around. Former cosmonaut Boris Marukov says that extended periods of time in space will require that each member of the crew serve as “a psychotherapist for himself,” analyzing his own emotions and actions. The next phase of the study, jointly sponsored by the Russian and European space agencies, will lock volunteers into the mock space capsule for 520 days, the length of an entire Mars mission—a round trip and a year living on the Red Planet.