Researchers Create "Mighty Mouse" With Gene Tweak

cylonlover writes "He can't fly just yet, but a team of scientists have made a big step towards creating a real-life Mighty Mouse. By tweaking a gene that normally inhibits muscle growth the researchers created a batch of super-strong mice and worms. The scientists acted on a genome regulator — known as NCOR1 — and were able to change the activity of certain genes. In simpler English, the scientists shut off the thyroid hormone that keeps most mammals from turning into the Incredible Hulk. The result was a strain of mice with muscles that were twice as strong as normal."

So they did mice?

[Tanuki64]

Belgians thought bigger:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Blue [wikipedia.org]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nmkj5gq1cQU [youtube.com]

Use It or Lose It

[Jah-Wren Ryel]

Seems to me that a whole lot of biological processes follow the "use it or lose it" paradigm. From muscle growth, to brain function and even living itself (get fat and lazy, you die sooner).

So what I'd like to see is research to counter-act that. Instead of a new gene-therapy replacement for steroids, how about something prevents muscle loss even for people who are sedentary? Something to counter-act the "maintenance" requirement to staying fit. That would be really nice.

Re:Wait a minute.

[hAckz0r]

Easy. More muscle mass equals less flexibility, slower movement, and inability to climb through small holes. With that your probability of being eaten climbs dramatically. Mice that are eaten do not reproduce very well, so the non-augmented mice father the next generation, absent of this modification.

.
Its just like 'white' mice. How many white mice do you see in the wild? Only escapees I'd bet. I once had an albino chipmunk in my back yard, and he lasted about a week before a hawk caught up with him. He didn't even get old enough to have his own family. :-(

Re:Wait a minute.

[Tanuki64]

Maybe... A few posts above I added some links with a certain brand of cattle with the same or similar gene defect. In the documentation I once saw about those, this was their major problem. But of course, between a ton of cattle and a few grams of mouse there might be a difference.