Howdy y'all.
So... I killed a mouse today.
Well, I didn't kill it. I just watched as it was lowered into a box filled with dry ice and listened until it stopped moving and then harvested its organs.
I may or may not have mentioned, but I work at the University Stem Cell Institute every Tuesday. It's an independent study for Biology. My project is that I take the hearts of a special kind of genetically modified mouse and look at them under a microscope to see if there are any stem cells.
This is a tiny contribution to a really important field of research: No one is certain that there is such a thing as Stem Cells in the adult heart. That's why a heart failure can damage you for the rest of you life: your heart can't re grow the cells that died. If heart stem cells are found, a cure for heart failure could be developed and tons of lives could be saved.
In the mean time, I will be killing mice every week and slicing up their hearts. I think I'm in favor of using mice for research, generally speaking: you can genetically modify them and they'll still live as good or better a life as any mouse, until they are painlessly killed. I think it's kind of noble of them to sacrifice their lives.
But watching a terrified mouse die is really hard.
I'm just going to knuckle down and do it. What do you girls think?
Best Wishes!
Rose
So... I killed a mouse today.
Well, I didn't kill it. I just watched as it was lowered into a box filled with dry ice and listened until it stopped moving and then harvested its organs.
I may or may not have mentioned, but I work at the University Stem Cell Institute every Tuesday. It's an independent study for Biology. My project is that I take the hearts of a special kind of genetically modified mouse and look at them under a microscope to see if there are any stem cells.
This is a tiny contribution to a really important field of research: No one is certain that there is such a thing as Stem Cells in the adult heart. That's why a heart failure can damage you for the rest of you life: your heart can't re grow the cells that died. If heart stem cells are found, a cure for heart failure could be developed and tons of lives could be saved.
In the mean time, I will be killing mice every week and slicing up their hearts. I think I'm in favor of using mice for research, generally speaking: you can genetically modify them and they'll still live as good or better a life as any mouse, until they are painlessly killed. I think it's kind of noble of them to sacrifice their lives.
But watching a terrified mouse die is really hard.
I'm just going to knuckle down and do it. What do you girls think?
Best Wishes!
Rose
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