New from NPR 科學家是否太愛老鼠了?
From NPR 你是否想過,老鼠為何是科學家做實驗時最喜歡使用的動物? 蟒蛇,貓咪或是其他的動物難道行不通嗎? 撇開果蠅fruit flies與老鼠mice,科學家是否還有其他選擇? 這篇NPR的廣播探討以老鼠為實驗對象 所可能面對的限制與未來科學研究裡 動物實驗的發展方向 下載聲音檔請點我 Perhaps Scientists Like Lab Mice TOO Much Heard on All Things Considered The modern lab mouse is the most ubiquitous 無所不在 animal in biomedical 生物醫藥 research. In the U.S. and other parts of the world, mice studies have quadrupled 成長了四倍之多 since 1965 . One study found they make up 60 percent of animals used in experiments while studies on dogs and cats, rabbits and guinea pigs 天竺鼠 , zebra, fish and fruit flies 果蠅 have remained about the same. Daniel Engber, in a series of articles for Slate magazine( 美國人文與時事網路雜誌, 1996 年創刊 ) , recently took the time to ask why - why the mouse is such a mainstay 主要的依靠 of science and whether that's a good thing. DANIEL ENGBER: All of this is about standardization 標準 / 常規 . You know, it's easier for scientists, and it's cheaper if everyone's using the same animal,