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Mice In Space
benmcgruer writes "Space.com is reporting on the Mars Gravity Biosatellite Program. This international, student-lead, project aims to explores the topical issue of biological response to low gravity, specifically the 0.38-g found on Mars, by building and launching their own satellite, complete with 15 mice. NASA, Fark.com and Universe Today also have coverage."
Mice were the ones to build this planet.
Be nice to your lab rats.
I propose that instead of mice, we put rats in space, and launch Darl McBride to Mars!
I hear a Vogon constructor ship trundling in from the Oort cloud with hyperspatial bypasses on its mind.
Mice leaving the planet... what do the mice know that we don't?
"Destroy science and religion. Science would re-emerge exactly the same; but not religion." - Penn Jillette, paraphrased
Mice came back super intelligent...
...Mouse overlords...
Soon we'll know if mice can be trained to sort tiny screws...
Ok... lets move on!
After all, Jim Henson did similar experiments with pigs 20 years ago.
That's "Mr. Soulless Automaton" to you, Bub.
If you think the message board on Fark is a legitimate source of news, you've been reading them too long.
Logitech or Microsoft?
Oh. Those mice. Nevermind.
I wonder how much of the data will be irrelevant because mice walk on four legs, not two, thus decreasing the bone loss?
Reduction of gravity means eduction of weight not mass.
Surely to get a significant reading you'd need a mammal of equivalent mass and biology.
The weightlessness experience of the MIR cosmonauts provides much better space biology than sending a few mice into space.
And wtf is the IIS for then???
And this is not a reduced G vs micro G comment.
Worst
Maybe I'm missing it.. they speak of in-flight and post-flight data on one page, so will this thing eventually return back down to earth intact ?
If not.. erm.. those mice will be left to starve to death and rot, or be burned up in the atmosphere, or ?
( I know, I know.. hundreds of mice die at the hand of science every day, but would anything prevent the thing from returning back to earth 'safely' ? )
How much extra will it cost to bring the unit back to earth? I would save a little money on the return trip and add more sensors (or better sensors), maybe plan more experiments.
This is cool. If I was a physics student in highschool, I think MIT jumped to the head of the class. What is Cal-Tech going to do to top this?
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
won't it be hard to use them? They'll tend to float off of the mousepad...
Isn't it kind of a stretch to say Fark.com has coverage of it? At least Slashdot tends to give you a paragraph or two summary, at fark you get one line, and a bunch of unmoderated comments.
I was initially worried about the ethics of sending mice on a one-way mission to Mars ("gee, let's see the effects of starvation in the low-gravity environment"), but I was glad to see that this will only be a simulation with the intent of bringing the mice back:
If all you have are silver bullets, everything looks like a werewolf.
Sorry to disapoint you.
The students will be using only female mice, says Wooster.
I guess they don't want to risk cosmic-ray enhanced population explosion on the offchance it might produce <obligatory simpsons reference>.
(for those of you blinking in confusion)
<obligatory simpsons reference>I, for one, welcome our new Cheese-Loving Overlords</obligatory simpsons reference>
Visit CryptoGnome in his home.
In a related article also on space.com it is mentioned that mice embroyes low gravity conditions develop normally, thanks to some pioneering work by Japanese scientists. It seems to me that mice get to do all the fun things.
We have yet to determine wether life exists on Mars, and yet we are planning to send living organisms to the planet.
How can we prove that life existed on Mars before we planted our own infestation?
It *would* be worth it if they were testing Nuclear Propulsion. At least that way they could measure the REM dosage that the mice received. If everything goes as planned, the mice would receive very little from the craft and land on Mars in a condition to begin other experiments.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
I used to have this payloader rocket that you could load an egg in. One day I was digging around the yard under rocks (like most 14yro boys do) and I found some newts. Hmm, astro... astro... ASTRONEWTS YEAH!
So being the unusually cruel kind of kid that pulled the wings off of flies, and pretended his magnifying glass was the death star at alderon over an ant hill, I began my devious little plan.
I packed up my rockets, grabbed a few C6-7 engines I had (I love the long delay) and headed out to the school on my schwinn with the newt safely in tow.
I set up the launch pad, did all my pre-flight checks (make sure the fins aren't unglued, ect) and loaded the little guy in my egg payloader.
5...4...3...2...1 LIFTOFF!!!
Pretending that I was in mission control, I started saying things to myself like "Ok Houston, we have liftoff, going to full throttle" "Booster seperation complete, deploying parachute" I hopped back on my bike too chase the red and white striped parachute down.
The wind had carried the rocket south off school grounds, it was an overcast day so there must have been some high winds. I must have followed it for a 1/2 mile or so before I lost site of it. Then I noticed the red and white parachute dragging the cone and body of the rocket around the expressway from the wind that was kicked up by the cars. Then the unimaginable happened...
A orange 1976 toyota celica came barreling down the road. I swear to god, the driver looked me right in the eye, looked back at the rocket, and made a beeline straight towards it. I watched in horror as the right front wheel drove right over the plastic payload bay. After the cars had passed, I walked over to my injured rocket, which was now just a mess of carboard tubing, some balsa wood, and a bloody flattened carcase of a newt encased in a polyetheline casket.
I never flew a newt again.
Are you pondering what I'm pondering??
ummmm..
OK.
See, if you knew me, you would know how FAR from a racist I am, due to my deeds, interests and work.
Condelezza Rice begets an 'Ewww' cos she is fuckin SCARY dood. SCARY. She could be black, green, purple, Ochre, or a fuckin NON HUMANOID ALIEN like she is and I would still say:
Ewww
I hope you're not insinuating that Darl is related to rats? Being an owner of pet rats... I'll have to assure you that rats are quite intelligent and friendly... Darl is obviously unrated.
Especially when the skinny one answers to the name of Pinky and the fat one answers to the name Brain...
From excellent karma to terible karma with a single +5 funny post...