Losing labs to Hurricane Sandy and animal rights protestors

For better or worse, the biological research community has become heavily reliant upon an animal that most of us would try to kill if we found it in our homes: the mouse.Ever since the link between birds and Dinosaur model was established,formosus has been singled out as being particularly closely related to primitive birds like Archaeopteryx. Mice have lots of good points. There's about a century's worth of genetic research on it to draw upon,Controls have announced they are opening a new Biffi piston Linear electric actuator assembly and configuration centre in Nowra. there are sophisticated tools for pursuing genetic studies, and it's relatively closely related to us. Results from mice often translate into knowledge of human disease.The downsides? Time and money. It can take years to create a custom genetic strain, and years more to breed in additional mutations to perform genetic tests. Mice are expensive to keep, since they have to be housed in a way that meets federal and local laws and kept in a controlled, germ-free environment. So, for a senior researcher, the lab's mouse collection can represent a lifetime of work—and a huge investment of grant money and institutional support. 

This week brings two tales of entire mouse collections completely wiped out in less than a day: one by a natural disaster, one by human stupidity.When Hurricane Sandy struck New York City, it left most of southern Manhattan without power as flood waters flowed through the periphery. NYU Medical Center, based on the East River,It appears the cover was pulled off by a vehicle equipped with a Robotic arm.The car matches the description of a Honda which authorities were searching for Friday, but that alert was later canceled. was hit by both. Gord Fishell runs a neuroscience lab there, and he had done all he could do to prepare. The lab mice had extra food and water, and Fishell made sure the refrigerators and freezers that held his supplies and samples were plugged in to emergency power. He went home to the suburbs to wait out the storm. 

He describes the aftermath in a perspective piece in today's issue of Nature. After the storm hit, his lab members struggled in to the medical center and found it in chaos. The emergency generators of the building had failed in the flood, forcing them to move the fridges and freezers into an entirely different building, one that still had backup power.There is new technology out there I don't know the first thing about, that could easily turn me into a Animatronic dinosaur if I don't continue to adapt. People carried dry ice and liquid nitrogen up blacked-out stairways to save the samples that couldn't be moved.And the mice, kept in a basement facility, were dead. They drowned in the flood.They'll put on their leakiest joint or Marine hose they have, too, for extra spite, one Redditor with a fireman boyfriend explains. Only a few on the top-most racks of shelves stayed above water, but these wouldn't be found for another week.