1970s study mice and gay population

Universe 25 Experiment

What does utopia look like for mice and rats? According to a researcher who did most of his work in the s through s, it might include limitless food, multiple levels and secluded little condos. But what looked like rodent paradises at first quickly spiraled into out-of-control overcrowding, eventual population collapse and seemingly sinister behavior patterns.

He hoped to learn more about how humans might behave in a crowded future. His first 24 attempts ended early due to constraints on laboratory space. But his 25th attempt at a utopian habitat, which began inwould become a landmark psychological study. By the th day, the population peaked with over 2, individuals scurrying around, waiting for food and sometimes erupting into open brawls.

These mice spent most of their time in the presence of hundreds of other mice. When they became adults, those mice that managed to produce offspring were so stressed out that parenting became an afterthought. Eventually, several factors combined to doom the experiment.

These factors sent the mice society over a demographic cliff. Calhoun launched his experiments with the intent of translating his findings to human behavior. Ideas of a dangerously overcrowded human population were popularized by Thomas Malthus at the end of the 18th century with his book An Essay on the Principle of Population.

Malthus theorized that populations would expand far faster than food production, leading to poverty and societal decline. Ehrlich suggested that the impending collapse mirrored the conditions Calhoun would find in his experiments. The cause, wrote Charles C. After Calhoun wrote about his findings in a issue of Scientific Americanthat term caught on in popular culture, according to a paper published in the Journal of Social History.

Events like the murder of Kitty Genovese in —in which false reports claimed 37 witnesses stood by and did nothing 1970s study mice and gay population Genovese was stabbed repeatedly—only served to intensify the worry. Despite the misinformation, media discussed the case widely as emblematic of rampant urban moral decay.

Maris Fessenden Read More. Maris Fessenden is a freelance science writer and artist who appreciates small things and wide open spaces. Rudy Molinek Read More. In other words, the mice were not nice. John B. Calhoun Film 7. Watch on. Maris Fessenden Read More Maris Fessenden is a freelance science writer and artist who appreciates small things and wide open spaces.

Get the latest stories in your inbox every weekday.