When mice live in cages with an added earthen floor, it increases their resistance towards allergic inflammations. Close contact with micro-organisms in the soil triggers anti-inflammatory genes in the mice and stimulates their gut microbiota. Researchers from Karolinska Institutet have performed the study, which was published in the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology. Earlier […]
Fat production and burning are synchronized in livers of mice with obesity
Mice fed a fattening diet develop new liver circadian rhythms that impact the way fat is accumulated and simultaneously burned, according to a new study published in Cell by researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. The team found that as liver fat production increases, surprisingly, so does the body’s […]
AHA: Vaping Tied to Blood Clots — in Mice
WEDNESDAY, July 18, 2018 (American Heart Association) — A new study involving mice raises another concern about the danger of e-cigarettes in humans after experiments showed that short-term exposure to the device’s vapors appeared to increase the risk of clot formation. A higher risk of clots forming can lead to a greater chance of a […]
Study suggests mice and rats, like humans, make poor choices based on ‘sunk costs’
A team of researchers at the University of Minnesota has found that mice and rats, like humans, tend to make poor decisions based on “sunk costs.” In their paper published in the journal Science, the group describes their study and what they found. Sarah Brosnan with Georgia State University offers a Perspective piece on the […]
Biomarker discovered for pathogen that can blind or kill healthy young people
Imagine a pathogen that infects completely healthy people and can cause blindness in one day and flesh-eating infections, brain abscesses and death in just a few days. Now imagine that this pathogen is also resistant to all antibiotics. This is the nightmare scenario that obsesses Thomas A. Russo, MD, professor of medicine in the Jacobs […]
Novel drug therapy partially restores hearing in mice
A small-molecule drug is the first to preserve hearing in a mouse model of an inherited form of progressive human deafness, report investigators at the University of Iowa, Iowa City, and the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders (NIDCD). The study, which appears online in Cell, sheds light on […]