More Demented Mice Science – With Mobile Phones

On of the reasons Boggart Blog loves scientists so much is the way that like religious fanatics they just refuse to give up on totally bonkers ideas. Ideas that the one that convinces them making mice behave in totally unnatural ways can teach us valuable lessons about humanity. Perhaps these people were brought up on the stories of Beatrix Potter and thus have a deep seated belief in anthropomorphism.

When we question mouse science the scientists will say “Ah but mice and humans share quite a lot of DNA. This is true, and amoebae also share a surprising amount of DNA with humans to but we don’t expect to see an amoeba that has read Shakespeare, understands modern financial systems and can tell Chateau Petrus from Sneaky Pete* any time soon.

The extent to which we are programmed by our DNA has been vastly overstated as neuroscientists recently learned. We may by act of will change inherited behaviour traits – which is what Hindu mystics have been saying for thousands of years. This more or less demolished one of the trendy new sciences, evolutionary psychology, much favoured by our very favourite sub species of scientists, the boy-scientists hose wide eyed enthusiasm for all things scientific overrides critical thinking, logical deduction and common sense.

It is with considerable joy then that hot on the heels of yesterday’s posts concerning mice, fry ups and the eternal quest of Daily Mail readers to find the Holy Grail that will guarantee they have prodigiously talented babies, we report another project that has set out to equate mouse physiology with human physiology. Scientists are claiming they are on the verge of achieving a breakthrough in the effort to find a treatment for Alzheimers disease after achieving good results with mice “programmed to get Alzheimer’s” by giving them mobile phones.

Laying aside the issue of how anybody can know a mouse has Alzheimer’s or the outrageous assumption that mice whose DNA has been fiddled with to pre-dispose them to Alzheimer’s are certain to develop it, because we have asked such questions before only to be told “you just don’t understand science,” (Maybe not, but we understand mice.) we must ask what is the point of giving mice mobile phones when they have no thumbs with which to text?

Boy scientists in Florida claim to have found mobile phone radiation helps improve the memory of mice programmed to develop Alzheimers. Al least they are not funded by UK taxpayers money. But if the mice are programmed to get Alzheimers disease they have not actually got it have they. No. Because mice don’t get Alzheimer’s disease because they’re mice not human.

So let’s guess how the process works because a lot of the science is rather vague although the bits about “we need lots of money and some jollies to the Seychelles, Paris and Amsterdam to carry out field studies” are quite specific. OK, you programme a mouse to get Alzheimer’s then clamp a little cellphone to its ear and send digital signals into its brain to override the “Get Alzheimer’s Now” routine in the program.

Sounds almost as likely as finding a cure for the common cold.

*Chateau Petrus – The world’s most expensive wine
Sneaky Pete – American slang for cheap, low quality wine fortified with illegally distilled liquor