Pain-free mice

mccalli writes: "Not input devices, but real live squeaky things. Apparently, Canadian scientists are trying to breed mice that do not feel pain. The eventual goal is a better pain killer for humans, but this is said to be a long way off. More in the Nature article here."

Comments

Is this so wise?

[Dashslot]

I think one of the reasons we feel pain is so that we don't do stupid things...

Be very close to fire.
Touch very sharp things.
Drink/spill other people's pints, or look at their women

So if we now have painkillers that kill all pain, there are going to be a lot of mutillated people in future generations!

Re:Is this so wise?

[Molina the Bofh]

I saw on Discovery Channel a girl who couldn't fell no pain at all. It was born like that, some sort of rare genetic disease. Well, as she grew up, she had severe burns, had broken almost all the bones at her body and died young of complications. This way we can learn how pain helps us.

Re:Is this so wise?

[bouvin]

True, pain can be a message to stop doing whatever we're doing.

However, our pain system is severely broken in an number of aspects, and effective pain treatement would be boon to suffers of chronic pain. E.g. an arthritis patient is probably well aware of the condition, and could do without the pain. Another example would be burn victims. Morphine can only do so much, and a pain killer which would block the pain and nothing else would have huge potentials.

If I couldn't feel pain...

[Bonker]

Then my weekly trips to Madame Zora's house of punishment would be a complete waste of time and money. I *like* my pain, dammit!