(Seattle, WA) – Freshmen students at Seattle Pacific University in Seattle, Washington have recently completed a study to determine whether drinking coffee in the morning actually makes students more productive and intelligent. Because of ethical concerns, the study did not include any human subjects, but instead was comprised of 50 disposable mice acquired from the Fish-n-Fowl Pet Stop in downtown Seattle. 

Each of the mice were given a series of tests to measure their ability to complete complex tasks, and to exercise their critical thinking skills. These tasks included responding to loud noises, escaping from mazes, and pushing buttons in order to get food. All of the mice failed each of the tests, including the straight-line maze test, and the Hip-Hop response test.

After the initial tests, half of the mice were given a cup of coffee to drink, and the other half drank orange juice. The mice who drank orange juice were skittish in the presence of loud noises, especially Hip-Hop music. They also were able to find their way through complex three-dimensional mazes, and to cooperate in groups of three to open a combination lock on a box that held a pellet of dry mouse food.

The mice who drank coffee each nibbled off a portion of newspaper, and sat down, holding the newspaper in front of their faces. They ignored all instructions, failed to be moved or acknowledge the Hip-Hop music, and displayed no interest in completing the mazes or other tests of bravery and intelligence. None of these mice went anywhere near the pellet box, and scoffed at the combination lock. They spent the remainder of the day in what appeared to be deep philosophical throught.

The study will need to be peer reviewed prior to publication. However, the freshmen researchers have drawn much interest from the research and coffee communities, and also PETA. Their preliminary conclusion was that coffee does, indeed make mice more intelligent and mentally productive, and less likely to engage in senseless, non-productive activities. All of the researchers felt that the results of the study could be directly applied to humans, and didn’t see any reason to conduct further studies. 

The researchers plan to purchase the Starbucks franchise on the campus with money earned from the sale of their published paper on Elsevier and other pay-for-free-items sites across the Internet.