A Squeaky Experiment

It is impossible for animals to interact with people the way people interact with each other and it is also impossible for the other way around. Most of us might think that maybe there is a way that we are yet to discover. Amazingly, some scientists bridged this gap between humans and animals, particularly, rodents.

There is this experiment, done by Mel Slater and Mandayam Srinivasan at a lab in Barcelona where they have shown a person a way of interacting with a rat. This interaction was not on the real world but it is done over the internet, or we might say virtually. 

Basically, the procedure of the experiment was that there is a person wearing high def goggles, an arena where a baseball-sized robot and a rat is placed and the internet. The aim was for the person to interact with the rat virtually while the rat interacts with the robot, which is controlled by the person's movement. This interaction can be projected on the computer. Both the rat and the person appears to be humans on the computer therefore no one will really know whether the one they are interacting with is an animal or not.

The aim of the experiment was to study further the behavior of rats by somehow interacting with them. This experiment surely will inspire other scientists or even common people to venture or study about this matter further and might try to interact not only with rats but other animals as well.

to know further about this topic, you can go to http://discovermagazine.com/2013/june/03-on-the-internet-nobody-knows-youre-a-rat#.Ux8LK_mSxK0.