Science is making itself useful once again, this time completing a study that found that rats get down to some tunes and have a favourite rhythm to boogie to.
Researchers at the University of Tokyo rounded up 20 humans and 10 rats, chucked some accelerometers on them, and played different tunes at different tempos. For example, they got a bit of Mozart going and played it at 75% speed, 100% speed (normal), 200% and 400% to see which tempo we, and our dancing rat friends, bopped to the most.
Their favourite tempo to groove to is probably the most common in your favourite tunes, ya bloody rodent.
“Results showed that the rats’ beat synchronicity was clearest within the 120 - 140bpm range,” the results say.
That 120 - 140 bpm range is super close to the bpm of most house music (115 - 130 bpm). In fact, an earlier study found that that range of bpm is where we most naturally perform simple repetitive moments - i.e. dancing just comes easy when we listen to house.
And now, science has confirmed the same can be said for rats.
The larger takeaway from the study is that the 120 - 140 bpm tempo may resonate with ALL animal species, not just humans. It used to be thought that the innate ability to dance was a human thing, this research shows that the dance might just be within all living things on earth.
Lady Gaga’s ‘Born This Way’, Queen’s ‘Another One Bites the Dust’, and Maroon 5’s ‘Sugar’ were also played for the participants with the researchers finding that “both rats and humans jerked their heads to the beat in a similar rhythm,” as said by the research team in a statement.
That’s right, rats are just like us - although there are definitely some better tunes they could’ve used if they wanted to see the rats really leave it all on the d-floor. Classics like Aviici's 'Levels' and Chris Lake's 'Turn off the Lights' fall in that range, just to name a couple.
Maybe house music is the key to a deeper animal-human connection here on Earth. Don’t know if I want to compete with the whole animal kingdom in the RNV moshpit though.
