Take heart, laboratory mice: Purdue University scientists have found that mice raised in cages can relieve stress the same way mice do in the wild. "The perception of its ability to control stress has a bigger impact on the animal than does the stress itself," said Joseph Garner, assistant professor of animal sciences, in a press release announcing the findings. "Chronic, uncontrollable stress changes animals, making them different than normal. This ultimately makes them less valid research subjects." In the study, published online in the journal Applied Animal Behavior Science, Garner ... Read More

Today in Mice has branched out over the past year to look at the odd rodent who didn't happen to be a mouse or a rat, and today we make a clean break with rodentia and concentrate on the odd. Specifically, we refer to the solenodon, a venomous critter — we mean that literally — rediscovered in the wilds of the large Caribbean island of Hispaniola (home to Haiti and the Dominican Republic). You don't get much more endangered than to be thought possibly extinct, and both the Hispaniolan and its Cuban cousin shared that distinction until this decade. The solenodon — no fetching ... Read More

Researchers have found that mice exposed to low temperatures metabolize body fat more quickly and develop more blood vessels in their adipose tissue, where energy in the form of fat is stored. The study about the discovery, which could combat obesity and diabetes, was published in the January issue of the journal Cell Metabolism by researchers at Stockholm, Sweden's Karolinska Institutet (which awards the Nobel Prize in physiology or medicine). "This is the first time it's been shown that blood vessel growth affects the metabolic activity of adipose tissue rather than vice versa," said ... Read More