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Designer Mice Made to Order 382

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the time-to-start-a-mouse-farm dept.
blackbearnh writes "CNN is reporting about the world of designer mice. No, not the kind you click, the kind that scamper around and eat cheese. An effort is underway to produce mice with each of the 20-25,000 individual mouse genes "knocked out", which could lead to novel new treatments for humans. It turns out that after fully sequencing the mouse genome, the little fellas are almost identical to humans. From the article: 'A mouse with arthritis runs close to $200; two pairs of epileptic mice can cost 10 times that. You want three blind mice? That'll run you about $250. And for your own custom mouse, with the genetic modification of your choosing, expect to pay as much as $100,000.'"
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Designer Mice Made to Order

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  • would you? (Score:5, Funny)

    by dotpavan ( 829804 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @05:54PM (#14870055) Homepage
    A mouse with arthritis runs close to $200; two pairs of epileptic mice can cost 10 times that. You want three blind mice? That'll run you about $250. And for your own custom mouse, with the genetic modification of your choosing, expect to pay as much as $100,000.'"

    Oh, and Would you like to have fries with it?

    • Re:would you? (Score:5, Funny)

      by Lev13than ( 581686 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @06:08PM (#14870211) Homepage
      To: Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, ME
      Re: Genetically modified mice

      Dear Sir,

      I understand that you are in the business of breeding custom-designed mice. I find this quite fascinating, as I require custom animals for my experiments. Do you, by chance, have any specimens which are flexible, clawless and agoraphobic?

      Regards,
      R. Gere
      • I don't get it.

      • Re:would you? (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        I understand that you are in the business of breeding custom-designed mice. I find this quite fascinating, as I require custom animals for my experiments. Do you, by chance, have any specimens which are flexible, clawless and agoraphobic?

        Just order a dozen of the epileptic ones and get some nail clippers.

      • Re:would you? (Score:5, Funny)

        by bobcat7677 ( 561727 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @06:41PM (#14870492) Homepage
        To: Jackson Laboratory, Bar Harbor, ME Re: Genetically modified mice Dear Sir, I understand that you are in the business of breeding custom-designed mice. My company's activities sometimes require the use of animals with certain qualities that are getting hard to find these days. I am contacting you as our supplies of sharks and sea bass seem to have "dried up". Could you by chance produce a large quantity of ill tempered mice? We would also be interested in having laser beams attached to their little heads if you have the facilities for that. Thank you in advance, Number Two
    • Yum.

      But even more importantly, how much for a mouse than learns Visual Basic as its first programming language?

      But what I *really* want is a USB mouse that will go where I tell it to and click itself. How much for that?

  • Laser Mouse? (Score:5, Funny)

    by compuguy84 ( 886540 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @05:57PM (#14870091)
    ...Priceless...
    • I mean, if they're that close to human beings in terms of genetics, couldnt we just turn them into uber-smart rats? (mice with massive brains, etc.) 100,000 is a bargain for a mouse with psychic powerz

      • Re:Mouse human? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by MyLongNickName ( 822545 )
        Yup. Cause if turning a mouse into a super intelligent being were possible with a few smippets of gene code, evolution would not have produced it over millions of years.

        Often, the "good" gene combinations that produce a desirable trait have negative reprocusions that far outway the positive ones.

        I will attribute him [wikimedia.org] to blind luck on the part of the researcher.
      • I think certain pandimensional beings would disagree with your assertion that they aren't already uber-smart.

  • Hmmm... that's an idea... (Score:3, Funny)

    by thanq ( 321486 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @05:57PM (#14870096)
    How much for a pair of fast, reliable, self-sustaining mice that can keep my cats exercising and entertained each day so I don't have to?

    • Probably not a cost effective idea. Really, once the cats start approaching some semblence of "shape", the mice will need to be replaced on a daily basis. Furthermore, the cats will need more exercise to work off the mouse calories.
    • 1) Goto petshop and purchase a mating pair.

      2) Release into basement.

      3) ???

      4) Profit (well, not losing money getting some super mouse built to order)!
    • How much for a pair of reproducing "mice" that are a big as beavers, can chew through the aluminium siding, rip arms and legs off with their paws, and can run 100 yards in 10 seconds?

      What is stopping anyone from making these ecological monsters? Is there some kind of scientific oversight group? Or a set of defined ethical and/or ecological guidelines? Like in Pierre Ouilette's sci-fi novel about plant-animal genetic hybrids that was published in 1993 and whose name excapes me.
    • If the cats don't succeed eating them, they will eventually grow bored of the moice and stop paying attention to them (that's how cats are) and you'll end up with a pair of super mice roaming around your house. :)
    • enter the cue cat (the horrible barcode scanning device, and no pun intended for this post)
      I've got one mounted to a gyro, only the LED works (clipped all else to make room for a built-in battery so no cord entanglement) and it's fairly well-focused (for an LED,) so a nice bright red dot appears on a wall. (though I say it looks more like an eye than a dot) Disturb the gyro, and boom, instant moving red dot for kitty to play with. Not even a challenge to make.
    • It's 19.95 but you have to listen to a screaming Austrailian and some worn out bimbo actress for an hour around midnight or so.

  • Uhmmm.... (Score:5, Interesting)

    by mark-t ( 151149 ) <markt.nerdflat@com> on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @05:57PM (#14870097) Journal
    Does not the deliberate creation of a living creature to have a specific disability of some sort seem in some way cruel or inhumane? Or is it just me?
    • Does not the deliberate creation of a living creature to have a specific disability of some sort seem in some way cruel or inhumane? Or is it just me?

      I assume these mice are for lab tests.

    • Re:Uhmmm.... (Score:4, Insightful)

      by iamlucky13 ( 795185 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @06:15PM (#14870289)
      Genetic engineering does raise some ethical questions, but it's not like they're raising these mice to laugh at them. "Hehe, these mice are blind. Let's put them in the carpenter's kitchen to see if his wife cuts off their tails!"

      Is it playing God or using our natural faculties for the betterment of mankind? Where do you draw the line? Is it ok to make glow-in-the-dark mice, but not mice with 6 legs? What about glow-in-the-dark mice versus glow-in-the-dark E-choli (I did the latter back in high school)? Or glow-in-the-dark people?

      I hate mulling over these questions because it's so hard to set a standard to judge them by, but they have to be asked or it gets out of control.

      • Genetic Ethics (Score:5, Insightful)

        by TiggertheMad ( 556308 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @09:08PM (#14871627) Journal
        Is it playing God or using our natural faculties for the betterment of mankind? Where do you draw the line? Is it ok to make glow-in-the-dark mice, but not mice with 6 legs? What about glow-in-the-dark mice versus glow-in-the-dark E-choli (I did the latter back in high school)? Or glow-in-the-dark people?

        Is inflicting some minor medical condition on a GM mouse any LESS cruel than raising chickens in wire cages, killing and eating them? What about cutting down a tree? Killing a small spider because they make you nervous?

        All of the things I mentioned involve people killing things for their own ends. Pretty much every animal in nature, including humans, is willing to kill something weaker or powerless to sustain itself. Humans are the only creature that stop to think about it. (Note that we generally still do it, but just moralize over the decision on occasion.)

        It seems to me that it is pretty moot debating about using mice to find cures for diseases, when you might be wearing wool, leather, silk, and eating a ham sandwich. I suppose that you could argue about the degree of suffering that is being infliced upon animals by the various fashions that we use them, but I think I'd much rather be a lab mouse that is bread to have cancer than be a pig in a stockyard. At least I'd have people pumping me full of drugs in an effor to cure me.

        Interestingly, because of the central point of my poasting, that it seems a universal law that the more powerful species will prey on weaker species, I have to say that I am *glad* we have not encountered alien lifeforms. There is a good chance that when we meet them, we will size them up as dinner, they will do the same, and someone will get eaten.

    • Isn't it more cruel or inhumane.. (Score:5, Insightful)

      by drgonzo59 ( 747139 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @06:18PM (#14870313)
      Not to conduct such research on mice and let hundreds of thousands of people die of heart disease, diabetes and cancer. Mice in-vivo and in-vitro tissue models are invalueble to heart, diabetes and cancer research. They are mammals, they breed fast and a lot is already know about them.

      I work in a heart research lab where we cut the hearts out of the mice and attach them to a working heart machine and pump a blood subsitute through it. Then we test various drugs and load conditions on it. The question is would you like to volunteer so that we test the drugs first on you, or your older family members, instead of the mice so as to spare their lives? Or would you rather be assured that in hundreds of mamalian tests the durgs performed as they are supposed to and the effects are clear and reproducible.

      We abide by the rules and anaesthesize the mice carefully, we don't torture them and try to do the best we can to minimize their suffering. Personally I wish we didn't have to do this, I don't like to kill things -- animals or people, but in this case it is worth it to save many human lives.

      • Re:Isn't it more cruel or inhumane.. (Score:4, Insightful)

        by thefirelane ( 586885 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @06:54PM (#14870593)
        animals or people, but in this case it is worth it to save many human lives.

        There are many animal rights activits who would disagree with you..

        most are young, heathly, and willing to sacrifice the old for their 'moral' quest.

      • The mice are evil anyway (Score:5, Insightful)

        by mdarksbane ( 587589 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @07:44PM (#14871017)
        I've got a bunch of friends in various biology majors. Although they are all animal lovers (one wants to go to school to be a vet when he graduates), they have all worked in the labs doing a lot of experiments on mice. And they all agree, that the more time you spend around the things the less you feel that they are cute little animals that we shouldn't be experimenting on.

        They are cruel, cannibalistic, disgusting animals. They will breed constantly and eat their own children, or perhaps just nibble off half of an ear and leave them to live. Anyone who's kept mice as pets know that having more than one only really works out with two females - a mixed pair will breed a million babies (and then eat them) and with two males one will eventually kill the other over territory.

        So, yes, while I think it should be done in as painless of a manner as possible (and to actual justifiable scientific benefit), I think that killing a few of them to save human lives is completely worth it.

        Of course, I'm sure anyone looking at humanity from a far enough vantage point would feel the same about us. Doesn't make them wrong, though, from that viewpoint.

        • Re:The mice are evil anyway (Score:5, Insightful)

          by drgonzo59 ( 747139 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @09:39PM (#14871801)
          I had mice at home when I was 15. A female gave birth to 6 young ones. Then after she was done, she ate the heads of two of her babies. I was quite upset, as I was waiting for the new mice and wanting to see her take care of them and nurse them and protect them. Eventually I let them all go free. No more mice for me, except at the lab were we experiment on them.

          But that wasn't the mice's fault. It was mine -- I had human expectations for them. People constantly anthropomorphize animals. They think of them as people and assign them human qualities.. "Dog are compassionate", "Mice are cute". That can go either way. The PETA people assign them all these noble qualities and protect the animals as if they are people. People who work in labs see the mice eat their babies and think how "evil" and "disgusting they are, they almost deserve to be experimented on". The truth is, it is neither, the are not moral, they just do what the instincts tell them to do.

    • Apparently it's not a problem, as one of the differences with mice and people is they don't feel pain, so they can't notice if there's anything wrong. Also, they don't have social systems like we do so there's no stigmas attached to their disabilities so if they're OK with it as mice I don't see what the problem is?
    • Happens all the time when women are pregnant who are abusing drugs or smoking. Its well know what disabilities a baby could have due to excesses of drugs or alcohol.

    • Re:Uhmmm.... (Score:4, Funny)

      by TheNarrator ( 200498 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @06:32PM (#14870426)
      The best reason of all to experiment on mice though is to get back at them for the spreading (via fleas) the 13th century Black Death plague that led to over a 3rd of Europe's population dying! Just think of the irony! They tried to eliminate us by spreading disease and we are using them for medical research!

    • Re:Uhmmm.... (Score:5, Funny)

      by ErikZ ( 55491 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @06:42PM (#14870496)

      Inhumane?! Science being cold, calculating and pitiless? Say it isn't so!

      Don't worry about it, when the tests are done, they cure the arthritic mice, put the anti-seizure chip in the epileptic mice, and tiny little bionic eyes in the blind mice. Then they send them to a local farm and release them in a field. Where it's nice and sunny and they can run and laugh and frolic all day long.

      But usually they last about 15 minutes before an owl comes by and eviscerates it. A lot of owls hang out by that field, we're not sure why.
    • Yea it does to me too.

      If I had to choose between my daughter dying of diabetes or creating a dozen mice doomed to die of diabetes that the choice is a no-brainer.

      And if there was just about anything to do with mice that would give me a healthy 35 year old body for say... 500 years, I'd be for it.

      The conflict is unresolved in my brain.

      But I guess every day that I engage in -any- kind of luxury instead of helping those poor starving folks in other countries that I'm in engaging in a similar kind of calculus.

      • Re:Uhmmm.... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by boingo82 ( 932244 )
        And if there was just about anything to do with mice that would give me a healthy 35 year old body for say... 500 years, I'd be for it.

        Seriously?
        If anything sounds like a recipe for a bored, overpopulated planet, that would be it.

    • As a species it's our job to look out for each other first. Do you eat beef, pork, chicken, or any other living animals? Is that cruel? Do you wear leather, or like Jello (come on there's always room for Jello).

      Learning from mice to save the lives of thousands or millions is worth it in my opinion. Sure it seems crule when you're focused up on it real close... but stop being myopic and think about the larger picture. And, someday when you're sick and a medicine that was found by doing research on mice sav

    • Re:Uhmmm.... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by glwtta ( 532858 )
      Does not the deliberate creation of a living creature to have a specific disability of some sort seem in some way cruel or inhumane?

      It's probably inhumane, that's why we don't do it to humans.

  • Obj HHGttG Reference (Score:3, Funny)

    by blackbearnh ( 637683 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @05:57PM (#14870098)
    Oh, those clever mice, letting their genes be manipulated, mysteriously developing arthritis, glowing in the dark.

  • Leopard Skin (Score:4, Funny)

    by Jozer99 ( 693146 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @05:58PM (#14870109)
    How about a mouse in a leopard skin print to match my decour?

  • No more concern about endangered species? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by team99parody ( 880782 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @05:58PM (#14870110) Homepage
    We're quickly entering an age where we'll be creating species's faster than we can kill them off; so we shouldn't get all worried when we kill them off. Last bald eagle dies -- just order a bald flying mouse.

    I'm partially kidding; but partially serious too. If today's california condor isn't well suited in the modern environment; wouldn't it be better to grow better ones more able to survive - rather than forcing the unfortunate few remaining ones to suffer in an environment no longer well suited to them?

    • If today's california condor isn't well suited in the modern environment; wouldn't it be better to grow better ones more able to survive?

      No, you fool! If you do that, NOTHING will stop them! We'd be doooooomed!!!
    • If today's california condor isn't well suited in the modern environment; wouldn't it be better to grow better ones more able to survive - rather than forcing the unfortunate few remaining ones to suffer in an environment no longer well suited to them?

      Yeah, sure. Until we make just one mistake. Then, we have a condor that is very well suited to a suburban environment -- it just eats stray pets!

      I do not trust any human, no more how brilliant, to modify life. We don't know how the ecosystem works, and the

    • Re:No more concern about endangered species? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by mblase ( 200735 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @06:14PM (#14870280)
      If today's california condor isn't well suited in the modern environment; wouldn't it be better to grow better ones more able to survive - rather than forcing the unfortunate few remaining ones to suffer in an environment no longer well suited to them?

      Well, part of the cause of the California condor's decline is humans shooting them for sport. So I'll assume you don't include that in your definition of "environment no longer well suited to them."

      Part of the problem is that we cannot, yet, grow better animals to survive. This article is talking about crippling mice in specific ways for medical science; eugenics is exactly the opposite technology.

      Another issue is the question of species survival. Since we can't gene-sequence an animal complete for later resurrection, especially when that animal's population is under 200 like the California condor's.

      The ultimate goal is to preserve species diversity in the wild as much as possible. Human expansion across the planet has had a far more devastating effect on species diversity in every possible environment than natural selection could ever achieve. Too few species and you have a kind of monoculture, filled with a small number of species excellently adapted to parasitizing human society but lousy at doing much of anything else.
    • I agreed with your comment for a second before realizing that creating 'better suited' condors, for instance, is really avoiding the issue. Are they endangered because they're not fit for the environment anymore, or because of catastrophic changes in that environment caused by human interference? It's sort of like putting more air in a tire day after day because it keeps going flat. Wouldn't it be better to patch the hole? We should try to stop crapping on the enviroment before wasting research $$ on crea

    • Sounds unlikely (Score:5, Insightful)

      by No Such Agency ( 136681 ) <abmackay AT gmail DOT com> on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @06:19PM (#14870330)
      The amount of "genetic design" (to borrow the phrase from Blade Runner) required to make condors or any other species "better adapted to a new habitat" is simply not possible with today's knowledge of biology. Every aspect of the condor's physiology - lung function, flight muscles, temperature tolerance and body insulation, sight - is the result of millenia of "tweaking" via natural selection. We can currently barely get a single gene to express predictably in a new species, and that requires a lot of work and money to do. "Re-adapting" the condor is something a Victorian pigeon breeder would have much better luck at than a modern molecular biotechnologist - but he'd still need decades to do it, one generation at a time.

      "Knockout mice" are altered to reduce or eliminate a single gene's function, in a simple binary fashion. They are an extremely reductionist technology, used to answer quite reductionist questions of how molecular pathways behave. They are, despite their cost and sophistication (and usefulness), a very crude development.

  • Profit! (Score:5, Funny)

    by cowboy76Spain ( 815442 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @06:00PM (#14870129)
    1. Catch three normal mice somewhere
    2. !!!!!!
    3. Sell three blind mice for $250
    4. Profit!

  • Wistful thinking (Score:5, Funny)

    by jaymzter ( 452402 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @06:00PM (#14870133) Homepage
    Work with me here.. A mouse with laser beams for eyes!! And he flies, and with super strength shall lay the capitals of the world to waste! I shall call him.. MIGHTY MOUSE!!

    Unless you pay me the sum of One Million Dollars!!

  • How much.... (Score:4, Funny)

    by mblase ( 200735 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @06:01PM (#14870138)
    ...for a superintelligent white mouse [amazon.com]? I want to be able to create my own three-dimensional sculpture with a living element before those things go out of style.

  • This is news? Maybe for some of you... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Miraba ( 846588 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @06:02PM (#14870149) Journal
    When I saw this as a preview, I wondered why this could be considered news. Anyone who works in biotech is familiar with specialty mice and the companies that make and breed them.

    Then I realized that given the makeup of /. (lots of "hard science" geeks), this could be considered new information to a number of people here. But still, news? I can only assume that when an old topic hits CNN, it suddenly becomes news again.

    • We bow down to you, oh great biotech overlord. If you would be so generous as to impart your knowledge of all things biotech, we might one day be able to distinguish what is news and what isn't.

      Until then, we'll just continue to learn things as we become aware of them.

    • Exactly. The lab I worked in was genetically modifying mice back in 1998.

    • Then I realized that given the makeup of /. (lots of "hard science" geeks)

      heh. If only that were the case. The makeup of slashdot is computer nerds, who generally know very little about science, but think it's "cool". Just look at all the dumb jokes that get posted in every single science story. There aren't two cultures (science and the humanities), but three cultures, science, humanities, and technology. There's a little crossover between the sciences and technologies, with each group thinking they u

  • Re: Designer Mice Made to Order (Score:5, Funny)

    by JeanBaptiste ( 537955 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @06:03PM (#14870167)
    Can you make them with the cheese already inside?

    That would really save me a lot of trouble...

    I prefer Mozzerella.

    Thanks in advance.

  • Intelligent Design (Score:5, Funny)

    by RedHatLinux ( 453603 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @06:05PM (#14870190) Homepage
    Does this count as intelligent design?

  • Designer mice? (Score:3, Funny)

    by njchick ( 611256 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @06:16PM (#14870304) Journal
    I want a Christian Dior mouse, with pink floral ornament and letters "CD" on the belly.
  • $100,000 is a small price to pay for finally kicking some script kiddie ass in Counter-Strike...

  • My faves are the Nude Glowing Mice (Score:5, Interesting)

    by WillAffleckUW ( 858324 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @06:28PM (#14870393) Homepage Journal
    A lot of recent research that's interesting to me includes designing siRNA and miRNA "virus" packages to target cancers and other tumors in mice specifically bred to have increased, decreased, or normal (control) reactions to certain diseases.

    It's fun to watch the tumors glow red, green, blue, yellow, or a mixture of two or more.

    The best part is if you squish the mice a bit but not too much, held flat to a transparent plate, you can see the glow without killing off the mice.

    Sadly, this doesn't work with humans, they're too dense (can't see thru them easily), or we'd be further along with methods of locating and killing or at least targetting for excision (surgery) the tumor cells, especially when they have designed receptor tags (an offshoot of HIV research, actually).

    Now if we could just design glow-in-the-dark instant tattoos for humans, that would change color if you started to have certain diseases (say HIV or TB or whatever), now that would be super cool.

    I'd get mine as a standard-light invisible one, with a green serpeant that had red fangs if I had whatever disease, and maybe a blue afro if I was coming down with something common ...

  • dammit (Score:2, Funny)

    by bitt3n ( 941736 )
    here I was all excited that I could get gold-plated mouse with hand-tooled authentic leopardskin sliders, and then the article's all about curing other people's debilitating diseases
  • Yup, this gives an entirely new meaning to the old challenge "Are you a man or a mouse?"

    /F

  • They've got it backwards (Score:5, Funny)

    by kjots ( 64798 ) * on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @06:52PM (#14870572)
    No no no, you've got it all wrong! It's the mice that have genetically reprogrammed us to have arthritis, epilipsy and/or obesity! It's all part of a long running experiment to discover the true nature of the universe! The fact that the scientist think they're the ones performing the experiments just proves how ingeniously subtle the mice really are!
  • How much would it cost to get a mouse with Tourette Syndrome, and what would that cost me? I would love to have one of those. That would be too much fun at bars. "Calm down, dude, it wasn't me, it was my mouse."
  • Almost Identical eh? That's a pretty misleading statement. Even Joe Sixpack will call bull. He won't be too far wrong.

    There a little thing called Chaos Theory [wikipedia.org]. Without getting into details, what it means is, even the slightest change in the initial state of a chaotic system can lead to vastly different results, and the differences will grow as the system evolves.

    What's more, complex unpredicable properties will emerge as the system evolves further. Order of a kind may emerge, but only on a general level. Lo
  • Go to the pet store and puchase three healthy mice for a buck fifty and feed each feed them a diet devoid of vitamin A and keep them away from sunlight. Bingo three blind mice for 4.50 plus tax. Savings $245.50. You can create your own, large varity of custom mice through changes in diet environment and selective inbreeding.

  • Jackson Lab (Score:3, Informative)

    by oudzeeman ( 684485 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @07:11PM (#14870754)
    I work at the Jackson Lab, but as a software engineer (working with computational biologists to write parallel code). It's pretty facinating place. we have over 1200 employees divided into two major groups - pure research and JRS (Jackson Research Systems) which breeds and sells about 3000 different mice to the scientific community. Many of our 3000 strains of mice are available only from the Jackson Laboratory - surplus money from mice sales goes to pay for research support (research scientists apply for grants but the mice sales surplus helps pay for operating costs). It's the worlds largest mamallian research facility
  • Most all major research institutions these days have their own transgenic core in-house. As long as you provide the vectors, they'll subsequently transform the stem cells and generate the chimeric mouse. From there it's the PI's responsibility to back-cross the mouse and maintain the colony.

  • How we treat our animals today is how we will.. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by tector ( 959062 ) on Tuesday March 07, 2006 @07:29PM (#14870896)
    It is interesting that this thread sparked a discussion of the morality of manipulating the genes of these mice to cause deliberate malformations that are not in the best interest of the mice.

    Why would we suddenly have attitudes towards mice that are any different from other animals in our charge? We selectively breed pigs specifically for desired ratios of fat to flesh; breed chickens using hormones that result in an "adult" chicken in a fraction of the conventional time; inject bovine with hormones to stimulate lactation and production; all in an effort that is not in the best interest of the animals, but in the best [immediate] interest of the purveyor.

    Looking to the human world, and we turn a blind eye (I apologize for that really mixed up metaphor) from rampant genocide (genocide: a friendly name for killing everyone of a particular genus) in The Sudan because it's in the best interest of Chevron, we never did hold Union Carbide/Dow Chemical to task and provide meaningfully relief to the citizens of Bhopal, but let Texas jail Dianne Wilson for hanging a f*cking protest banner all the while ..

    we don't even raise a whisper about the human genetic mutilation caused by chemical contaminations in Vietnam, Halabja, Toulouse, Venice, Midland - MI, New Plymouth - New Zealand, etc..

    Since we clearly do not care about our fellow man and child, but are content to let the corporations dictate the new morality, why the hell should we give a rat's ass about the welfare of a mouse ?

    If we accept the theory that we may take liberties with the members of the Mus genus, since we are the superior beings and our benefit outweighs the detriment inflicted, then it is an easy step to rationalize the ill treatment of the third world, and anyone living in Michigan, as justifiable if it in any way benefits the upper middle classes, and that is exactly what we have done.

    How we treat our animals today is how we will treat each other tomorrow.

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