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Apr. 11th, 2007 02:30 pmThis is a fascinating article on the usefulness of bacteria in everyday life. In particular, it hypothesizes that exposure to certain types of bacteria causes the immune system to produce (among other things) serotonin, and that as we become increasing germ-phobic, we also experience increased depression.
The horrifying part of it all is that they tested this by drowning mice!
The mice were placed in a large beaker of water for five minutes and watched to see how long they continued swimming and searching for an exit before giving up. The researchers found that the bacteria-exposed mice continued paddling around much longer than the control mice.
Does anyone else find this utterly sickening? I don't necessarily think of myself as a radical, but this seems awfully close to torturing the wee critters to death.
I really hope that I'm misreading things and that actually, after the test, the researchers dried off the mice, gave them hot cocoa and read them stories in front of a warm fire. Somehow, though, I doubt it.
The horrifying part of it all is that they tested this by drowning mice!
The mice were placed in a large beaker of water for five minutes and watched to see how long they continued swimming and searching for an exit before giving up. The researchers found that the bacteria-exposed mice continued paddling around much longer than the control mice.
Does anyone else find this utterly sickening? I don't necessarily think of myself as a radical, but this seems awfully close to torturing the wee critters to death.
I really hope that I'm misreading things and that actually, after the test, the researchers dried off the mice, gave them hot cocoa and read them stories in front of a warm fire. Somehow, though, I doubt it.
