Lots of new followers on Twitter this last week, thank you so much everyone. I appreciate the support. 🙂
I promised a post on rodent euthanasia last week and it’s almost-but-not-quite done. Coming up soon! I had a few other blogs to write for last week, but should have more time this week. Also this week, I’m hoping to update a few previous blogs with some interesting links that I’ve come across.
No CALAS gossip this week, but there is an upcoming seminar which is a secret and held at a secret location! Ooooooh! It’s on rodent hydration and if you want to go, you’ll have to be pre-approved by Their Royal Majesties the… er… CALAS execs. In all seriousness, rodent hydration is important – rodents can rapidly loss weight when stressed or sick and good techs need to be cognizant of the topic. Whether or not an industry sponsored talk is the way to that knowledge is another question.
A few things to munch on this week as we enjoy our additional hour of sleep:
- I am not entirely sure why this is, but the number one search term for reaching my site is “masterbating squirrel”. Seems a lot of people out there are either really interested in the STD avoidance strategies of African ground squirrels, or… well. Hm.
- Thank you to everyone who shared their thoughts about stem cells! The article is done and I’ll share it when it’s published, along with some of the comments and answers I received.
- Nicholas Wade recently published commentary in the New York Times which does a good job of expressing some of the wariness I feel about basic research. Basic research is valuable, of course. But it’s misleading to portray basic research as the easy, straight road to “breakthroughs” and success.
African ground squirrels who are not currently masterbating...
Thanks all.
[Photo from Wikipedia: African ground squirrel]
AlbinoMouse 
So busy lately, that I never got around to responding to your stem cell question.
All I have to say to this, even if I’m too late, is that
a) how can there be such passionate ‘ethical’, ‘moral’, concern over the use of stem cells when so-called Christians, Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, all, can allow without even flinching our fellow inhabitants of this planet to endure “pain near, at, or ABOVE the pain tolerance threshhold of unanesthetized, conscious animals”, all described in acceptable Canadian research, and
b) if we fund stem cell research, we must avoid the same old pitfall where the next step has to be animal research….
that has happened with the recent BCFNAR grant, where wonderful progressive in vitro research risks being waylaid by the scientific establishment’s usual “Yeah, but: try it on this animals species, and then that one, and then let’s guess at how it will all turn out for humans”…..