Friday Night Feat

When Man Meets Mouse

University of Chicago scientists found that for rats “the value of freeing a trapped cagemate is on par with that of accessing chocolate chips”; Duke University’s Bilbo Lab found that ratlings who are intensively touched by their mothers are better able to resist morphine later in life. Mice genetically engineered to suffer cleft palates were genetically cured, mice bred into alcoholism for forty generations were found to be three times too drunk to drive, mice deprived of the H3R gene were found to be less likely than wild mice to drink alcohol in the dark, mice deprived of the FoxC1 gene were found to grow blood vessels in their corneas, and pregnant female mice given heart attacks were healed by the fetal stem cells of their pups. Mice who lack SIRTI, one of a class of proteins associated with aging, spend less time floating and more time fighting when about to drown, and are unaffected by Prozac.

—February 2002 Harper’s, “Findings”