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Mouse-Infest Destiny

November 1, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment
(ILLUSTRATION: GRAHAM SMITH)

UNTIL A FEW WEEKS AGO I didn’t have the slightest interest in mouse urine. But after some study I’ve concluded that it is covertly running and ruining the world, strangling small children, and driving the profits of Big Pharma. I came to know mouse urine, the molecules of which are known as MUPs (Major Urinary Proteins), and specifically as Mus m 1, because the molecules were stubbornly clinging to the studs of a cabin that I recently bought. Though I didn’t yet know the molecular names or weights of my MUPs, I knew they were there. Mice had burrowed through the cabin’s fiberglass ... Read More

More like this: November-December 2012, Today in Mice
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The Joy of “Few-Toothed” Rats

August 21, 2012 • By • Leave a Comment

Ed Yong's piece on non-chewing rats would have been good fodder for our rodent-related Today in Mice: On the Indonesian island of Sulawesi, Jacob Esselstyn has discovered a new species of rodent that radically departs from this universal body plan: a “shrew-rat” that he calls Paucidentomys vermidax.Its name –a mash-up of Latin and Greek—gives a clue to its lifestyle. It means “worm-devouring, few-toothed mouse.” Would be nice if my former (and turns out, hoarding) neighbors had had "few-toothed" rats. ... Read More

More like this: The 101
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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

More like this: Science, Science & Environment, Today in Mice
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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

More like this: Health, Science, Today in Mice
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Working Mice Spun From Skin Cells

July 25, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment

Embryonic cells are no longer the only cells that can produce live offspring. Two separate Chinese research teams reported this week that they have been able to reprogram skin tissue cells of mice into an embryonic-like state. The cells, called induced pluripotent stem cells, were first produced in 2006 by a Japanese research team from Kyoto University. They have long been theorized to have pluripotent abilities (the potential to differentiate into any cell type in the body except placenta) that could be used in future degenerative and genetic disease treatment. But until now scientists ... Read More

More like this: Science, Science & Environment, Today in Mice
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Burning Fat With E. Coli’s Help

June 10, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment

Scientists have shown they can make animals burn more fat by inserting a molecular shunt into the livers of mice. The shunt consists of two metabolic enzymes not normally found in mammals, but common in bacteria and plants, according to the article in the June issue of the journal Cell Metabolism. In this case, the enzymes were taken from E. coli bacteria. The shunt is "an additional channel for burning fat to control obesity," said James Liao of the University of California, Los Angeles, in a press release announcing the findings. His UCLA colleague Katrina Dipple put it this way: "It's ... Read More

More like this: Science, Today in Mice
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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

More like this: Science, Today in Mice
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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

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Disarmed Virus Takes Shot at Diabetes Cure

March 18, 2009 • By • Leave a Comment

A team of researchers at Baylor College of Medicine has discovered that stem cells already existing in the body are key players behind a gene-therapy regimen that appears to permanently cure Type 1 diabetes in mice. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Type 1 diabetes, a condition where the body does not produce enough insulin to maintain healthy sugar levels in the blood, accounts for between 5 and 10 percent of the nearly 36 million cases of adult diabetes in the United States. People living with the Type 1 diabetes are tied to a life of daily glucose monitoring ... Read More

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Breathing Is Skin Deep

May 18, 2008 • By • Leave a Comment

Biologists from the University of California, San Diego, have discovered that the skin of mice can sense low levels of oxygen and accordingly regulate the production of erythropoietin, or EPO, which is the hormone responsible for producing red blood cells and adapting to high altitude. The surprising report, published in the April 18 issue of the journal Cell, challenges the conventional thinking that mammalian skin acts as a kind of envelope for bodies, disparate from the respiratory system. If the finding holds true for humans, it could change how physicians treat anemia and other ... Read More

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