Study: Lobsters unlikely to feel pain

[BeatleBoot]

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/L/LOBSTER_PAIN?SITE=MIDTN&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

<snip>

PORTLAND, Maine (AP) -- A new study out of Norway concludes it's unlikely lobsters feel pain, stirring up a long-simmering debate over whether Maine's most valuable seafood suffers when it's being cooked.

Animal activists for years have claimed that lobsters are in agony when being cooked, and that dropping one in a pot of boiling water is tantamount to torture.

The study, funded by the Norwegian government and written by a scientist at the University of Oslo, suggests lobsters and other invertebrates such as crabs, snails and worms probably don't suffer even if lobsters do tend to thrash in boiling water.

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[Ezlivin]

1. We'll believe this until the sentient lobster beings from outer space land

Then we'll quickly change our tune.

[Catchawave]

4. LOL....this topic seems to be making the rounds in all the

forums today. Slow news day?

Great photo :)

[TlalocW]

6. Kent Brockman (Simpsons) voice

I for one welcome our new outer space lobster overlords!

TlalocW

[KyndCulture]

2. Yes boiling a lobster is not considered toture, meanwhile

back at Abu Graib frying testicles is also not considered torture.


Love our media!

[FloridaPat]

3. For decades doctors thought babies didn't feel pain and needed

no anesthesia for operations. If they don't feel pain, why do they try to get out of the pot?

[HamdenRice]

5. I read something creepy about this ...

a few years (?) ago I think in the New Yorker. It was about whether animals feel pain. The author said his perspective changed once while preparing a lobster dinner. He had a few live lobsters on the kitchen counter. When he threw one lobster in the pot, the others, still on the counter, ran backwards with their claws raised, as though they could tell their brother was being boiled alive and they were next!

[Modem Butterfly]

7. Lobsters are mean

If a lobster could trap you, drop your ass into a pot of boiling water and serve you with drawn butter and a little lemon wedge, it would. Lobsters are vicious little creatures that will attack the soft parts of a person first. YOU know what I'm talking about. It's us against them, and we've got the opposeable thumbs, and they're delicious. So fire up the kettle, Pa, cause it's supper time!