Re:Pretty Pictures (Score 1)

This point should be modded up. I am ambivalent about the ethics of animal testing. When I see photographs of animals, especially ones that are quite similar to us such as monkeys, drugged, confined, with probes all over its body, I do shudder. On the other hand, scientists seem to have a good idea of the amount of pain these procedures cause (as remarked by one of the posters) and can minimize it to a small level.

It is clear that we are going to see increasing amounts of research into brain-machine interfaces. Hence it best that the issue of animal testing ethics is brought up during such news reports. We could all learn more about animal testing practices. We could then form an informed opinion about what is acceptable and not feel guilty every time we benefit from such research.