Muscle Mice

SilasMortimer writes "Researchers from the University of Colorado at Boulder have accomplished that for which humankind has been desperate since the dawn of civilization: turning sad, injured regular mice into angry, beefed-up super-mice. Well, okay, there's no official word in the article about the rodents' emotional states, but certainly when stem cells were injected into mice with leg injuries, the muscle grew back... almost twice as big as it was before the injury [abstract, supplemental material (PDF)]. This has many exciting implications, from better healing after injuries to slowing down the aging process to a spike in the number of cases of Generalized Anxiety Disorder among cats. I, for one, refuse to perpetuate outdated memes. (But feel free to make up for the lack.)" If these mice are bred with those given previously discovered treatments to make them smarter and fearless, we might be in trouble.

Extensive testing...

[geogob]

I can only start to see how this could go wrong. From tumors to having a lung grown in the leg... I fear we might have face some interesting surprises during more extensive testing.

I'm going to write a science boook:

[fyngyrz]

"Machine-guns for Algernon"

Re:I disagree

[SuricouRaven]

Mice evolved to survive by breeding. They are already running at the limits of reproduction rate for an organism of their size. Twenty day gestation, and ready for a new litter to be concieved almost as soon as the previous is out. A female can pop out upwards of a hundred offspring each year easily, all of whome will be ready to breed themselves in three months. It's just not getting any higher.

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