Milk may join red wine in goosing metabolism and longevity —Cell Metabolism via Science Daily Move over, “Madagascar 3”: Now we can see mice brains … in 3-D —Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory via Pop Sci Might skin cells be transformed into stem cells to treat Alzheimer’s? —Cell Stem Cell via ABC News Targeting the brain’s appetite control switch suggests we could flip it to ‘off’ —Cell via ABC News Decades-old antidepressant found to slow colon cancer growth —PLOS One via Focus Taiwan “Rogue” stem cells now blamed for ... Read More
Rats and That Vision Thing
December 23, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
New research by an international team of scientists suggests that it may be possible to treat age-related macular degeneration using induced pluripotent stem cells — stem cells that can be created using other cells, like skin cells, from virtually anywhere in the body (making them far less controversial than embryonic stem cells). The team, led by Dennis Clegg of the University of California, Santa Barbara, and Pete Coffey of University College in London, published two papers on their findings, one of which appeared in the Oct. 27 issue of Stem Cells. The other was published this month in ... Read More
And For My Next trick, I Will Levitate a Mouse
September 11, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
Unless you're David Blaine or a particularly adept yogi, levitation outside of bullet trains is likely beyond your ken. And even for the yogis, sometimes it's been more bouncing than flying, based on what these unblinking eyes have witnessed. But now scientists at CalTech and the University of Missouri, Kansas City (go Kangaroos!), have managed to levitate mice. Well, they don't actually levitate mice — they levitate the water in the mice, and the rest of the critter has no choice but to rise, too. It's kind of like Reaganomics — a rising magnetic field lifts all vermin. The field is ... Read More
Itchy? You’ve Got Some Nerve
August 17, 2009 • By • 1 Comment
Think that itch of yours is a pain in your neck? Think again. According to a team of six researchers from Washington University in St. Louis and Peking University in Beijing, the two sensations — itching and pain that is — are completely independent of each other. For years, scientists considered itch and pain to be two related sensations, with itch being lesser of the two evils. However, this study — published online in the journal Science — found that the feeling of "itch" is controlled by its own specific neuron in the nervous system. "As humans, when we feel itch, we know ... Read More
This Is a Mouse’s Brain on Prozac
May 27, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
A new experimental mouse model of depression and anxiety — the first to allow simultaneous analysis of the different effects of antidepressant drugs, like Prozac, on the same animal — could lead to the development of better treatments for those disorders, according to a major new study published in the journal Neuron. Until now, the exact molecular influences of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (also known as SSRIs) and other types of antidepressants have not been well understood. "Recently, compelling work in rodents has suggested that SSRIs may stimulate changes in a brain ... Read More
A Spicy Way to Keep the Weight Off?
May 21, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
In a recent study, researchers at the Jean Mayer USDA Human Nutrition Research Center on Aging at Tufts University found that curcumin, the active ingredient in turmeric, seems to reduce weight gain and retard the growth of fat tissue in mice that were fed high-fat diets. Their research is published in the May 2009 issue of the Journal of Nutrition. "Weight gain is the result of the growth and expansion of fat tissue, which cannot happen unless new blood vessels form, a process known as angiogenesis," said senior author Mohsen Meydani, director of the center's Vascular Biology Laboratory, ... Read More
Building a Better Mouse Study
April 1, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment
Regular readers of this blog know that Today In Mice has long championed the individual rights of laboratory rodents. And now, at last, our lonely but courageous crusade has been seized upon by real, honest-to-God academics. Joseph Garner, a Purdue assistant professor of animal sciences, and professor Hanno Würbel of the Justus-Liebig University of Giessen in Germany have published a study in the journal Nature Methods that suggests scientists should change their long-held methods and test mice in deliberately varying environmental conditions. (Sure, take them skiing! Take them dancing! ... Read More
