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Designer Mice Made to Order

Posted by ryuzaki0 on 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.'"

2 of 382 comments (clear)

  1. Apple's Mighty Mice by Aqua+OS+X · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    or for $50 bucks you could get one of Apple's designer mice.... but it will probably suck. It'll either have one button or it won't be able to register a right click 10% of the time. It may also include uncomfortable squeeze buttons.

    --
    "Things are more moderner than before- bigger, and yet smaller- it's computers-- San Dimas High School football RULES!"
  2. It's probably waaaaay too late, but... by dbarclay10 · · Score: 0, Offtopic

    It's probably waaaaay too late, but...

    While I don't feel particularly strongly about the debate of animal testing (my father is a butcher, I spent several years on a cattle/chicken farm as a child, and more than once have I killed my food a few short hours before I ate it), I would like to raise a point.

    Most of the arguments in favour of animal testing revolve around "they aren't sentient, they can't feel it, better them than humans, etc." First, it's obvious that they feel it. Go poke a needle in your pet dog and see how he likes it :)

    But that aside, the fact that they aren't sentient (or at least the theory that they aren't sentient) is an argument *against* testing on them, as far as I'm concerned. If the options are "test on something which can feel it, but isn't as self-aware as a human" or "test on a human who has weighed the options and made a concious decision on the matter," I think the latter is definitely more ethical.

    Now, I'm off to kill a cow, eat its muscles, and wear its skin :)

    --

    Barclay family motto:
    Aut agere aut mori.
    (Either action or death.)