Forums: Mice Love Rice

yum

The mammalian fucose mutarotase enzyme is known to be involved in incorporating the sugar fucose into protein. Female mice that lack the fucose mutarotase (FucM) gene refuse to let males mount them, and will attempt copulation with other female mice.. Chankyu Park worked with a team of researchers from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology and intriguingly gained some insight into the neurological basis of sexual preference. He said, "The FucM knockout mice displayed drastically reduced sexual receptivity, although pregnancy after forced mating attempts by normal sexually experienced males .

Rodent Scurries By as Obama Lauds Wall Street Vote May 20, 2010 WASHINGTON (AP) -- In the midst of his battle with the titans of Wall Street, President Barack Obama was nearly upstaged by a rodent. Obama had just begun a Rose Garden statement lauding the end of a Senate filibuster on his financial overhaul when some kind of rodent dashed out of the bushes to his right, just outside the Oval Office. As photographers snapped away in the sun-drenched garden, the critter scurried straight past the gray podium with the presidential seal and made a bee-line for another set...

Johns Hopkins researchers discover pathway in mice for epicatechin's apparent protective effectResearchers at Johns Hopkins have discovered that a compound in dark chocolate may protect the brain after a stroke by increasing cellular signals already known to shield nerve cells from damage. Ninety minutes after feeding mice a single modest dose of epicatechin, a compound found naturally in dark chocolate, the scientists induced an ischemic stroke by essentially cutting off blood supply to the animals' brains. They found that the animals that had preventively ingested the epicatechin suffered significantly less brain damage than the ones that had not been given...

Key difference between reprogrammed adult mouse cells and embryonic stem cells discovered.Stem-cell researchers have puzzled over why reprogrammed cells taken from adult tissues are often slower to divide and much less robust than their embryo-derived counterparts.Now, a team has discovered the key genetic difference between embryonic and adult-derived stem cells in mice. If confirmed in humans, the finding could help clinicians to select only the heartiest stem cells for therapeutic applications and disease modelling.Induced pluripotent stem (iPS) cells are created by reprogramming adult cells, and outwardly seem indistinguishable from embryonic stem (ES) cells. Both cell types are pluripotent — they...

London's Houses of Parliament, also known as Westminster Palace, has rodents, and the peers aren't exactly sure what to do about it. Ivan Anthony Moore-Brabazon, the House's administration chief, on Wednesday turned down suggestions to acquire cats. He says the felines could ingest mice poison or wander around the chamber and disrupt business. He favors the current tactic of using poison and mousetraps. Parliament staff have reported daily sightings of the rodents in the palace's restaurants and bars.

Male mice drive females wild with ultrasonic love songs, suggests a new study. Since song quality varies, the mice world has its Justin Timberlake-like stars that impress females with their talents more than other willing, but not so able, males do.

A study in mice has hinted at the impact that early life trauma and stress can have on genes, and how they can result in behavioural problems. Scientists described the long-term effects of stress on baby mice in the journal Nature Neuroscience. Stressed mice produced hormones that "changed" their genes, affecting their behaviour throughout their lives. This work could provide clues to how stress and trauma in early life can lead to later problems...... The team found that mice that had been "abandoned" during their early lives were then less able to cope with stressful situations throughout their lives. The...

Along with the defensive wounds and the flunked lie detector test, investigators looking into the murder of Yale student Annie Le focused on a lab technician named Raymond Clark because of e-mails about the care of laboratory mice. In the e-mails, Clark is said to criticize Le for not adhering to the protocols for tending the mice kept in the basement as part of her lab's ongoing experiments. Le is said to have responded in a conciliatory tone, promising to keep to the protocols. Investigators wonder if Clark was not satisfied, if resentment suddenly flared to rage, if as crazy...

Scientists have now levitated mice using magnetic fields. Other researchers have made live frogs and grasshoppers float in mid-air before, but such research with mice, being closer biologically to humans, could help in studies to counteract bone loss due to reduced gravity over long spans of time, as might be expected in deep space missions or on the surfaces of other planets. Scientists working on behalf of NASA built a device to simulate variable levels of gravity. It consists of a superconducting magnet that generates a field powerful enough to levitate the water inside living animals, with a space inside...

The researchers used a fluorescent protein to track gene expression Researchers in Japan have successfully grown replacement teeth in mice, according to a report in PNAS journal.

Animal study shows over-the-counter medications lower weight and treat type 2 diabetes Over-the-counter allergy medications turn obese, diabetic mice into healthy, normal-weight mice, researchers report. The new research focuses on mast cells, immune system players critical to the inflammatory response involved in allergies. The study appears along with three other independent studies in the July 26 online Nature Medicine that show a connection between type 2 diabetes and the immune system. “Certainly the study is very exciting,” says George King of Harvard University’s Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston, who was not involved in the research. “It’s the first type to...

Chinese scientists have created live mice from mature skin cells that had reverted to an embryonic-like state. The scientific success could further defuse controversy over harvesting embryonic stem cells, but also raises new ethical issues about potentially making clones selected for specific traits. Reprogramming stem cells has become popular over recent years, because it avoids the cloning or embryo-destruction techniques which have traditionally been used by scientists to create embryonic stem-cell lines. The Chinese experiments now prove that reprogrammed adult stem cells can be made to create live offspring with normal bodies, at least in mice. Two Chinese teams injected...

A new study suggests that delivering small RNAs, known as microRNAs, to cancer cells could help to stop the disease in its tracks. microRNAs control gene expression and are commonly lost in cancerous tumors. Researchers have shown that replacement of a single microRNA in mice with an extremely aggressive form of liver cancer can be enough to halt their disease, according to a report in the June 12 issue of the journal Cell, a Cell Press publication. Cancer amounts of cells that have damaged programs. Their information state is incorrect. MicroRNAs work naturally in cells to regulate gene expression. Using...

What type of bait do you find works best for mouse traps?

TRENTON, N.J. — The frozen remains of two mice injected with the organism that causes plague have not been accounted for seven weeks after being discovered missing at a University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey facility in Newark, the university said Friday. The FBI investigated and determined there was no risk to public health or any indication of the terrorist link. -snip-

Genetically engineered rats should follow soon, providing new models of human disease. Genetically engineered rats: coming to a lab near you.Alamy Rat pluripotent stem cells - the essential ingredient for making genetically engineered versions of the animals - have finally been created after decades of effort in the field.Scientists have long been able to alter the DNA in mouse embryonic stem cells, routinely creating mice with missing, added or altered genes. But the same techniques have not worked in rats, whose larger size can make them better models for certain disorders in humans. Although some techniques do exist for genetically...

A chef in the capital city of Laos, Vientiane got a surprise yesterday according to local media. He bought a well known local brand of vacuum sealed rice in a plastic bag and when he opened it

Mice fed junk food for nine months showed signs of developing the abnormal brain tangles strongly associated with Alzheimer's disease, a Swedish researcher said on Friday. The findings, which come from a series of published papers by a researcher at Sweden's Karolinska Institutet, show how a diet rich in fat, sugar and cholesterol could increase the risk of the most common type of dementia. "On examining the brains of these mice, we found a chemical change not unlike that found in the Alzheimer brain," Susanne Akterin, a researcher at the Karolinska Institutet's Alzheimer's Disease Research Center, who led the study,...

WEDNESDAY, Oct. 22 (HealthDay News) -- It sounds like science fiction, by scientists say it might one day be possible to erase undesirable memories from the brain, selectively and safely. Using a complex genetic approach, U.S. and Chinese researchers believe they have done just that in mice, but the feat is far from being tested on humans. Study co-author Joe Z. Tsien, co-director of the Brain & Behavior Discovery Institute at the Medical College of Georgia, Augusta, says the "work reveals a molecular mechanism of how [memory deletion] can be done quickly and without doing damage to brain cells." The...

SAN DIEGO – A team of San Diego scientists has moved embryonic stem cell research a step closer to helping repair the brains of stroke victims and people with diseases such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's. The team, led by the Burnham Institute's Stuart Lipton, figured out how to coax the embryonic stem cells of mice to become nerve cells that, when transplanted into a mouse brain damaged by stroke, link themselves to the existing network of neurons. The mice showed therapeutic improvement, and none of them developed tumors, which has been a problem associated with the implantation of stem cells,...

Kremlin hawks feed conspiracy theories with 3,200 white mice Mark Franchetti RUSSIANS bored by today’s predictable presidential election have turned their attention to a puzzle that emerged from the corridors of power last week: what on earth did the Kremlin want with 3,200 white mice worth more than £10,000? The Federal Guard Service, the Russian equivalent of the American Secret Service and guardian of both Vladimir Putin’s security and the Kremlin grounds, advertised for the rodents, specifying that they should be female, white, laboratory-bred and weighing no more than 18 grams (just over half an ounce). Delivery to be arranged...

Chipmunks And Shrews, Not Just Mice, Harbor Lyme DiseaseChipmunks may harbor as much as 13 percent of lyme-infected ticks. (Credit: iStockphoto)ScienceDaily (Dec. 6, 2007) — A study led by a University of Pennsylvania biologist in the tick-infested woods of the Hudson Valley is challenging the widely held belief that mice are the main animal reservoir for Lyme disease in the U.S. The paper demonstrates that chipmunks and two shrew species, not just mice, are the four species that account for major outbreaks. According to the study, white-footed mice account for about a quarter of infected ticks. Short-tailed shrews and masked...

The National Institutes of Health has spent millions of dollars over the past decade funding the mass production of a creature that is part mouse and part human.  Every one of these most peculiar rodents requires live tissue extracted from the liver and thymus of a human child–and every child who donates tissue to create such mice is first killed by a medical doctor. They are victims of abortions that cannot take place until at least the eighth week of pregnancy, when the fetal liver is finally formed.  Although history may someday record the saga of this mouse as...

American scientists are using tissue from aborted babies in genetically engineered mice to study how certain diseases are spread, and the experiments are being paid for with U.S. tax dollars.  It's not clear how much fetal tissue is used or how it is supplied. Scientists involved in some of the research at the National Institutes of Health refused to speak with Cybercast News Service about their work. The experiments started 20 years ago, when scientists first began implanting or injecting a mouse without an immune system with human cells or tissue to study diseases, such as HIV/AIDS and certain cancers....