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> Fifteen received 40 mg of propranolol after spending 2 minutes in proximity to a large tarantula, 15 got placebo, and another 15 received propranolol without exposure to a tarantula.

What about a group who was exposed to the tarantula without the propranolol?

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The 15 that got placebo didn’t get propranolol

But it's not clear if they were exposed to the tarantula.

from the punctuation and sentence structure, it is saying that "15 got placebo" meaning in the same situation as the previous statement (with tarantula). Also, what purpose would there be to having people take a placebo and be in a normal situation?

Coincidentally, I recently listened to an interesting Revisionist History episode that covered the importance and controversy of a semicolon in the interpretation of a section of the constitution

http://revisionisthistory.com/episodes/21-divide-and-conquer

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