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Genetically Engineered Mouse is Not Scared of Cats
Gary writes "A team from the University of Tokyo has genetically engineered a mouse that does not fear cats. By tweaking genes to disable certain functions of the olfactory bulb (the area of the brain that receives information about smells directly from olfactory receptors in the nose) the researchers were able to create a 'fearless' mouse that does not try to flee when it smells cats, foxes and other predators. 'The research suggests that the mechanism by which mammals determine whether or not to fear another animal they smell -- and whether or not to flee -- is not a higher-order cerebral function. Instead, that decision is made based on a lower-order function that is hardwired into the neural circuitry of the olfactory bulb.'"
So he's fearless if he smells a predator. What if the mouse sees a cat running full speed at him?
I can't find myself fearing fearless mice. Why? Because there was most likely a very good reason for the mice that they are afraid of cats and large things that can eat them... I just can't seem to worry about these things getting loose and breeding in the wild.
It's sort of like the fear of spiders, snakes, bears, and large cats. There are very valid reasons for humans to be naturally afraid of things that can kill/harm and maybe eat us.
Not news. They already engineering ones that do not fear my wife. It was only a matter of time.
Another team took the opposite approach and genetically engineered many people I know to have an irrational fear of global warming.
I'm glad their tackling this fear things from both ends.
"If you want to improve, be content to be thought foolish and stupid." - Epictetus
Once we have this treatment available for humans, Slashdotters will no longer be afraid of women!
In other news, Doraemon is still scared of mice.
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"
There's ample prior art.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
This mouse is often seen wielding a large mallet.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
these results to man. for unlike the lower animals, we are motivated by higher mental orders of conscience and reason. of course, some wankers will come along and say that we are also help captive to these lower impulses. but i say-
mmm... who's cooking brownies?
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The sense of smell is a big deal in the way predator and prey interact. For example, without a doubt the best way to get rid of the squirrels in your attic is to squirt just a small amount of fox urine fox urine up there. Just a few drops around your attic ladder opening will have those little farts on the run and gone within a day. Then plug up whatever holes originally allowed them to get up there and the problem is solved.
One caution: I've found that it only works once. If you don't seal up those holes, the squirrels come back and the second application doesn't work. Maybe you just need fresh urine. But no matter the reason, don't put off the soffet repairs (or whatever work you need to do) after scaring them away.
No, what really freaked the cat out was when the mouse tried to mate with it...
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
Well, I think that it's interconnected; there are certain smell receptors in a mouse that are hardwired to the "oh shit, run" response. They have disabled that in these mice, either by breaking the connection or disabling/removing the smell receptors more directly. The result is that the behavior is not present anymore.
That's really the interesting thing, here: they have found a genetic variation that produces a very definite, high-level behavioral change. That's pretty cool.
Although it's clear that many animals have a lot of behaviors that are 'instinctive' and must be carried genetically (which you can test by bringing an animal up in an environment that's devoid of other animals and monitoring it's behavior), it's not terribly clear exactly how they work and are transmitted. This might be one small step towards understanding a part of that.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
My cat doesn't have an eat mouse reflex - it's evolved into a "bat the mouse around for two hours until it dies of a heart attack, and then leave it somewhere that Food Bringing Slave can step on it!" reflex ...
A feral cat wouldn't have those issues, it would have slaughtered that mouse the second it didn't run fast enough. Yours is just a pussy.
Maybe someone pointed this out already, or perhaps I am just a bozo...
If a mouse's sensorium is determined a great deal by its sense of smell... and you disable that sense of smell... its "higher-order cerebral functions" would be impaired because they would not be getting the input they require to make decisions. How can you conclude that fear in mammals is related to the oflactory sense? Other mammals may use other senses to a larger degree.
To me, this seems like the old joke about the bad scientist who concluded that a frog with all its legs removed becomes deaf because it doen't jump when he yells at it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis
"It has been found that the parasite has the ability to change the behavior of its host: infected rats and mice are less fearful of cats"
http://www.dieblinkenlights.com