![]() ![]() Supplying the critters with unlimited food and water, he expected to see their population swell to 5,000 over the course of the 28-month experiment. ![]() Early Rodent StudiesĬalhoun began his experimental research on rodents in 1947 when he studied an enclosed group of Norway rats at a barn in Rockville, Maryland. Consequently, the “rodent utopia project” has been a subject of interest among architects, city planning councils, and government agencies around the world. Though wildly controversial when first made public, Calhoun's theory has raised concern over the years that the social breakdown of Universe 25 could ultimately serve as a metaphor for the trajectory of the human race. That, in turn, inevitably leads to extinction. In his theory, he suggested that overpopulation spawns a breakdown in social functions. The study confirmed his grim hypothesis, based on earlier studies of the Norway rat in small settings. Eventually, they established social orders that created inside and outside factions, and soon mating ceased altogether. Within the enclosure known as Universe 25, several pairs of mice bred a population, which ultimately swelled to 2,200. Calhoun (1917-1995) conducted a behavioral study of captive mice within a nine-square-foot enclosure at a rural facility in Poolesville, Maryland.
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