If You Tickle Me, Do I Not Laugh?

I'm not a fan of rats. Of any kind. They're basically pooping and biting machines and they are not cute. Oh, they look cute, alright. But once you've been bitten or peed on or pooped on, you'll come to see things my way.

Still, I read this article and had to laugh. (See what I did there?) It seems that researches have determined mice--and, presumably, other animals--laugh when they are tickled.

The video of these "laughing" mice cracks me up. What do you suppose they are thinking? "Tee-hee-hee! Stop it! Stop! Stop! I can't take it!"

It makes you think, though. What qualifications do you have to have to get a job tickling rats?

Seriously, though. Think about this. We keep finding, through research, more and more human-like behavior in more and more animals. Language. Tool use. Self recognition. Learning from another's experience. Baby talk with young.

And yet we continue to believe we are the only intelligent beings in the universe. Come on, people. We are not the only intelligent beings on the planet. (Although, I will grant you that you may be hard pressed to find any in some establishments around here.)