r/science • u/mvea Professor | Medicine • Mar 03 '25

Neuroscience Chewing different materials affects the brain and a new study found that chewing on wood (wooden tongue depressors), compared to chewing gum, led to a significant increase in a natural brain antioxidant called glutathione, and better performance on memory tasks.

https://www.psypost.org/chewing-wood-may-boost-memory-and-brain-antioxidants-study-finds/
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u/MoreRopePlease Mar 03 '25

My dog loved fruits. She'd nose around in the blackberry brambles looking for blackberries. She'd stretch as high as she could to get the low-hanging cherries from the trees, she'd eat my strawberries and blueberries (I had to put a little fence around the patch). Sometimes I would throw her cherry pits or the ends of strawberries and she'd chase them and wolf them down. She also loved playing with garter snakes, and throw them around like a bit of rope, poor things.

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u/Youre10PlyBud Mar 03 '25

Ha, I had a chow chow that did the same with snakes.

Found him with a rattlesnake once... I was just about to take it from him and he decided he was done with it, so he tossed the snake on the ground, put a paw on the head, bit just behind it... Then pulled back violently, skinning the whole thing.

It was actually quite disturbing but I was happy to be down a rattler.

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u/MoreRopePlease Mar 04 '25

woah... sometimes the mask comes off and we see the wild animals that are hidden in our pets. But, yay for safely killing a rattler. He clearly knew what he was doing.

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u/Youre10PlyBud Mar 04 '25

Yeah, no joke. Still one of the best pets I've ever had.

My stepdad works in construction. I came home from school one day and couldn't find Porky (the chow that skinned the snake) or his mom anywhere. I'm calling for them and calling for them and they're not coming.

Walked into the garage... And there's some dude sitting in the corner with both our chows growling as loud as can be. He broke into to steal my stepdad tools and the two chows pinned him in the corner till I came home.

They got some ice cream that day. Kept us safe from both intruders and pest animals, couldn't ask for better dogs.

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u/PsyCurious007 Mar 04 '25

He’s lucky Porky didn’t decide to step on his head & skin him