As the rats did this memory task, electrodes in the implants recorded signals between two areas of their brains involved in storing new information in long-term memory.

FORBES: Ten Brain Science Studies from 2011 Worth Talking About

Even though the introduced cells did not appear to travel to the affected region of the brain, the rats still did better than other rats who did not receive the cells.

BBC: Stem cell 'first aid' for rat stroke

They found these rodents were more quick to recover from shock and less likely to die than rats that did not receive this treatment.

BBC: News

Another telling experiment, conducted on rats, did not rely on cooking.

ECONOMIST: The evolutionary role of cookery

What the researchers did was give rats two substances found in foods: Omega-3 fatty acids, a kind of fat that the body can't make enough of on its own, and uridine, one of the building blocks of DNA, which promotes a cell's energy-making process.

FORBES: Antidepressant Foods

Very few people would answer a job advert to work with rats, but Catia Rodrigues is happy she did.

BBC: Working Lives: Maputo

The rats who dined carte blanche, on the other hand, did reduce the amount of leptin that their adipose tissue produced.

ECONOMIST: Obesity

The rats were also quicker to return to their everyday behaviours than the ones that did not get the enzyme-blocking drugs, shows the study, published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

BBC: News

Paul Rosin, a psychology professor at the University of Pennsylvania, who is one of the world's best-known authorities on the effects of capsaicin, has had no success in persuading rats to eat chilies, and very limited success with dogs and chimpanzees: the handful of cases where these animals did eat chilies seemed to be because of their strong relationships with human handlers.

ECONOMIST: Chilies