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The 9 Most Tested Lab Animals

Posted by samzenpus on from the not-a-list-you-want-to-be-on dept.

An anonymous reader writes "Discover Magazine has this odd photo gallery in which they explain why certain animals are used in scientific research. Why are high-tech contact lenses always tried out in rabbits? Why do we study monogamy in prairie voles? Etc. They say of the 9 animals: 'Taken (or stitched) together, they form a kind of laboratory doppelganger for humans.'"

6 of 235 comments (clear)

  1. They forgot one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    College students.

    1. Re:They forgot one by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      This list is terrible. I'm a molecular biologist, and one glaring omission is C. Elegans , a tiny little worm that is heavily used in fields such as developmental biology and genetics research. Also missing is the zebrafish, which is also really popular for genetics and developmental biology. While I've seen occasional tanks of frogs around the school, I don't think anyone researches caterpillars. I imagine if I told our (quite reputable) immunology department that they should switch to moths, they'd laugh me out of the school. How can the insect immune system be so similar considering they have an open circulatory system?

    2. Re:They forgot one by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I've never understood why people seem to freak out so much more over lab animals than they do over agricultural ones.

      For anybody supported by contemporary agricultural techniques eating animals is optional. All the suffering of animals in agricultural situations is basically inflicted because they are delicious.

      By contrast, until we come up with some truly amazing advances in tissue culture and computer modelling, animals are non optional for medical research. You can either stop research, and accept massive additional morbidity and mortality, or you can kill a whole lot of animals.

      And yet, for whatever strange reason, medical researchers are a whole lot more likely to get a firebomb through their mail slot. Even fur farming seems to get off more lightly. I don't understand it.

  2. Ok, new plan... by fuzzyfuzzyfungus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I say that we cease research on whatever animals in that gallery are cutest, and start testing on web developers who use Flash to do things that could easily have been done without.

    Lest I be accused of being inhumane, any such web developer who can show that his boss forced him to do so may personally perform the experiments on his boss.

  3. Rabbits and contacts.... by dgatwood · · Score: 5, Funny

    I would think it would be obvious why they put contacts on rabbits. They tried it on cats, but they gave up after they had to amputate a scientist's arm from the claw damage.

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    1. Re:Rabbits and contacts.... by MichaelSmith · · Score: 5, Funny

      Thats very true. One summer my parents cat got into the habit if sleeping on their pot belly stove. First time we used it that year this horrible scream was heard around the house. The cat charged across the living room, bounced off the far corner ricocheted into the kitchen and huddled under the kitchen table.

      So then I applied the standard treatment for burns, to immerse the affected area in cold water.....

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