electrical output shooting way past their normal
ranges. It was as though there was a surge of electrical activity
that sent the rats into brain seizures.
Chal still
remembered the sound one of them made after an assistant had tried to
poke it to see if it was responsive to stimuli. It had kicked its
legs, spinning in circles and squealing until it spun itself right
off of the edge of the table and onto the floor, ripping out the EEG
sensors as it fell. Legs kicking, the rat’s squeaks grew
fainter and fainter and then ended.
Chal had been
frustrated, but only for a short while. None of her assistants could
make sense of the EEG readings, but Chal continued analyzing them
after everyone else had given them up as random electrical output.
Working backwards, she was able to untangle the spikes of electrical
activity and realize that the rat brains were, in fact, being
overloaded too quickly upon awakening. Chal thought she could come up
with a solution.
If it was a surge
that was killing them, they needed a surge protector.
The problem with the
rats wasn’t that their brains weren’t able to handle
being awakened, it was that they were overwhelmed with the stimuli
that the world provided them right away. Chal had been trying to wake
the rats up into immediate adulthood, with a full memory center and
physical sensor capabilities. There’s a reason that babies are
born with underdeveloped eyes and ears, Chal decided: it was to
prevent information overload. And that would be her surge protector.
Easing the rats into
awakening was not as hard as it seemed at first. Rather than having
to rework the rats’ brains, Chal found that they could simply
rework the environment, making it less stimulating. After some
experimentation and a lot of dead rodents, they found that awakening
the rats in a soundproof tank with only dim red light was optimal.
Rather than have a normal rat cage with lots of objects around and
cardboard bedding, they put in a soft sponge floor. The direct EEG
sensors had to be replaced with remote ones so that the rats would
have no contact with wires, or, for that matter, with anything.
The assistants
started to call the tanks wombs , and Chal thought the
comparison was apt. Once the rats had adapted to the womb, the
scientists could add in external stimuli one by one. The rats did
much better, and eventually were able to be taken out and placed into
the mazes which they promptly failed to solve. That was when the
funding ran out and Chal gave up on the project, believing it
unworkable.
One laboratory in
Germany had asked Chal for help with awakening chimpanzees in the
same fashion. She had been thrilled to fly over to assist them, but
it turned out that they were still in the beginning phases of the
program and didn’t have any new insight. The only thing she got
out of her visit there was that chimpanzees were much harder to deal
with than rats, especially when being awakened.
Passing through
childhood into adulthood was difficult enough over an extended time
period. To grow up instantly was a challenge, but with rats the
transition was solved through the womb tanks. The German scientists,
working with apes, had also to deal with the subject’s
transition into sexuality. For the first few days after the chimps
were awakened, they spent all of their time touching their own
bodies, licking themselves, and masturbating.
Chal remembered
going into the viewing room for one of the full-sized tanks, which
closely resembled her rat setup. Red light, soft floors, but in this
case there was a monkey stroking its erection. She had blushed, then
scolded herself for blushing.
“Zis is how
zey act for the first few days,” the German scientist had told
her.
“I see,”
she had said, and pressed her lips together. “And afterwards?”
“Afterwards
zey are not so aggressive,” he told her. “But we are just
beginning testing for levels of consciousness.”
That was what she
was interested in, but the
ranges. It was as though there was a surge of electrical activity
that sent the rats into brain seizures.
Chal still
remembered the sound one of them made after an assistant had tried to
poke it to see if it was responsive to stimuli. It had kicked its
legs, spinning in circles and squealing until it spun itself right
off of the edge of the table and onto the floor, ripping out the EEG
sensors as it fell. Legs kicking, the rat’s squeaks grew
fainter and fainter and then ended.
Chal had been
frustrated, but only for a short while. None of her assistants could
make sense of the EEG readings, but Chal continued analyzing them
after everyone else had given them up as random electrical output.
Working backwards, she was able to untangle the spikes of electrical
activity and realize that the rat brains were, in fact, being
overloaded too quickly upon awakening. Chal thought she could come up
with a solution.
If it was a surge
that was killing them, they needed a surge protector.
The problem with the
rats wasn’t that their brains weren’t able to handle
being awakened, it was that they were overwhelmed with the stimuli
that the world provided them right away. Chal had been trying to wake
the rats up into immediate adulthood, with a full memory center and
physical sensor capabilities. There’s a reason that babies are
born with underdeveloped eyes and ears, Chal decided: it was to
prevent information overload. And that would be her surge protector.
Easing the rats into
awakening was not as hard as it seemed at first. Rather than having
to rework the rats’ brains, Chal found that they could simply
rework the environment, making it less stimulating. After some
experimentation and a lot of dead rodents, they found that awakening
the rats in a soundproof tank with only dim red light was optimal.
Rather than have a normal rat cage with lots of objects around and
cardboard bedding, they put in a soft sponge floor. The direct EEG
sensors had to be replaced with remote ones so that the rats would
have no contact with wires, or, for that matter, with anything.
The assistants
started to call the tanks wombs , and Chal thought the
comparison was apt. Once the rats had adapted to the womb, the
scientists could add in external stimuli one by one. The rats did
much better, and eventually were able to be taken out and placed into
the mazes which they promptly failed to solve. That was when the
funding ran out and Chal gave up on the project, believing it
unworkable.
One laboratory in
Germany had asked Chal for help with awakening chimpanzees in the
same fashion. She had been thrilled to fly over to assist them, but
it turned out that they were still in the beginning phases of the
program and didn’t have any new insight. The only thing she got
out of her visit there was that chimpanzees were much harder to deal
with than rats, especially when being awakened.
Passing through
childhood into adulthood was difficult enough over an extended time
period. To grow up instantly was a challenge, but with rats the
transition was solved through the womb tanks. The German scientists,
working with apes, had also to deal with the subject’s
transition into sexuality. For the first few days after the chimps
were awakened, they spent all of their time touching their own
bodies, licking themselves, and masturbating.
Chal remembered
going into the viewing room for one of the full-sized tanks, which
closely resembled her rat setup. Red light, soft floors, but in this
case there was a monkey stroking its erection. She had blushed, then
scolded herself for blushing.
“Zis is how
zey act for the first few days,” the German scientist had told
her.
“I see,”
she had said, and pressed her lips together. “And afterwards?”
“Afterwards
zey are not so aggressive,” he told her. “But we are just
beginning testing for levels of consciousness.”
That was what she
was interested in, but the
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