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Thousands of Lab Mice Lost In Sandy Flooding
An anonymous reader writes "While New York University's Langone Medical Center in lower Manhattan was the site of heroism as 260 patients were evacuated from flooded floors and a nearly complete loss of power, similar floods at NYU's nearby Smilow Research Building killed thousands of laboratory mice, including genetically altered specimens in-bred over many generations as research subjects for melanoma and other diseases. Other laboratory animals, cells, and living tissue used in medical research were also lost; because of the gestation period involved, some projects were likely set back a number of years. Past experience with storms such as Allison in Houston and Katrina in New Orleans has shown that keeping laboratory animals in basements is not good practice, but research institutions keep doing it anyway."
Poor mice. I love rodents. I really do. Must have been horrible for them to see and feel the influx of water without being able to escape or do anything.
Time to stop watching The Walking Dead.
sysadmins and parents of newborns get the same amount of sleep.
Its stupid to keep the lab animals in the basement obviously, if only from the perspective of setting research back years as was pointed out, let alone the needless killing of thousands of animals. The basements should be kept for the adminstration staff, or at least the lawyers...
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
including genetically altered specimens in-bred over many generations
didn't know the royals were in NY during the storm.
(I kid, I kid!)
--
"It is now safe to switch off your computer."
Animal research at my university was done in a nondescript building absent from the maps, with a front only about twenty feet wide (other buildings were wrapped around it). You needed a key-card to open the front door, and the building had a huge basement for cattle. The rationale for such a design is to make it difficult for animal rights extremists to break-in. I suspect other universities keep animals in the basement for the same reason.
The thing we should've done years ago, Pinky: Move to Arizona. I hear it's dry there. *ptooie* Now shut up and keep rowing. We'll make it out of the parking lot yet.
NARRF yes, right Brain!
The "Civilized World" jumped the shark ca. 1973.
...keeping laboratory animals in basements is not good practice, but research institutions keep doing it anyway.
The point of keeping them in the basement is to isolate them from outside influences that might affect your results. For instance, if you put them in the building lobby, they might get malenoma from the sun, or PETA might steal them and eat them ("People Eating Tasty Animals"). Basements are better.
What the news also isn't reporting, is that because of this flooding, there is all sorts of hazardous medical waste floating in the water underneath/in NYU medical center.
I would expect this to become a problem; there are millions of gallons of water which likely cannot simply be pumped out into drainage systems, and may have to be treated first, or removed for treatment at a later time.
The failure of NYU's backup systems may be one of the biggest localized issues to come out of this disaster. Time will tell,
Move the lawyers to the basement and move the lab rats to the offices the lawyers vacated. Anyone else with nearby offices will porobably consider having the lab rats instead of the lawyers as neighbors to be an improvement. If there's flooding again, we lose a few lawyers, the world is an even better place and the rats survive.
On the other hand, we need to make sure a few lawyers survive. They do serve a purpose since, after all, there are some things that even a rat won't do.
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
You know it's just a matter of time.
Most of the time you breed for genetic anomalies. Things like color-blindness, Huntington's repetitions, predeliction for cancer (cell cycle/apoptosis genes) are what are bred in. They are highly unlikely to be transmitted.
Keep an eye out for rodents stealing extension cords.
So, mutant diseased rats in NYC sewer... what's new?
Fuck systemd. Fuck Redhat. Fuck Soylent, too. Wait, scratch the last one.
R A T S !!!
Obviously, the mice simply took refuge back in their own dimension for safety - duh.
Frankie and Benjy asked me to tell you, "Thanks for all the cheese."
It must have been something you assimilated. . . .
When I read the summary (I didn't read TFA, ha!) i thought by "lost" they meant lost, not dead. Meaning, genetically modified mice are now free to breed with the normal mice in the wild. What would be the consequences of that, I have no idea. It depends how modified were the mice. Will they bring us new diseases? Make mice stronger, leading to overbreeding? I can't see anything good coming out of that anyway.
My
honestly, please read TFA
This is freaking scarey - did any escape? Has nobody watched 'Pinky and the Brain' ?
Just for you . . .
USS Lexington AnyMouse Report
Took the pic on 5/7/02 on the USS Lexington (CV-16) in Corpus Christi. I think it was somewhere near the engine room?
I for one...
On second thought. No it doesn't.
w00t!
"No fear. No envy. No meanness." Liam Clancy
Thousands of cats ran away during Hurricane Sandy
Yes? Why not? The loss of those mice sets back some research half a decade. That might mean 5 years when we could have saved people from cancer, which means a lot more deaths than Sandy caused directly. Maybe. Or maybe not. It's still relevant.
"None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license." --John Milton
What is hit once will be hit again. Locate accordingly, and have an evac plan if you don't have the option of an intelligently chosen facility location.
Nature doesn't care what you want. It does what it will.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
You obviously never had a mouse infestation. Shitting on and in everything, everywhere, on you at night, etc.. Making your family sick. You kill 9 and the 10th gets away and a month later there are 10 again.
fuck mice dude, they either survive or they dont. But its completely irresponsible of scientists to allow genetically modified animals into the wild because "it rained more than we were used to!".
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I'm against animal testing of any kind and sometimes they are treated cold heartedly in the name of science. This may have been a more merciful end for them.
Eyes Open Self-Hypnosis for Victory: Summon the Warrior
They just get nervous and give the wrong answers.
Have gnu, will travel.
Quite right. "Lost" also treats living creatures like inanimate property. They weren't lost -- they were killed. They're dead. One day they were running about and exercising free will, now they're lifeless.
Thanks to the text for getting it right. Shame on the headline writer.
Tom Geller
Please submit a few details about HAARP.
Zombie science mouses with genetic defects are going to infect the NY cats and dogs, and then the fun starts.
you can always get more empty suits to take bonuses and spiffs. you can't get more (power, boilers, lab rats, document storage, corners full of creepy crap) once the basement floods and is filled with the raw sewage of 20 million people in a flood. so fill the basements with suits, and put the infrastructure on floors 3-6.
if this is supposed to be a new economy, how come they still want my old fashioned money?
What the news also isn't reporting, is that because of this flooding, there is all sorts of hazardous medical waste floating in the water underneath/in NYU medical center. I would expect this to become a problem; there are millions of gallons of water which likely cannot simply be pumped out into drainage systems, and may have to be treated first, or removed for treatment at a later time. Is it? Or not?