September 10, 2009
Levitating mice
Scientists working on behalf of NASA built a device to simulate variable levels of gravity. It consists of a superconducting magnet that generates a field powerful enough to levitate the water inside living animals, with a space inside warm enough at room temperature and large enough at 2.6 inches wide (6.6 cm) for tiny creatures to float comfortably in during experiments.
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“comfortably”
I’m sure the mouse in question just threw his legs up and caught up on his reading. He only likes Playmouse for the articles, you know. He has no need of the rest.
Last night I plugged in our ultrasonic speaker for the first time. Not only did I not hear our mouse friend (who first appeared after we birdsat, presumably from the excess birdseed), but I had crazy aural dreams, the sounds of words isolated from their meaning. These are the word-sounds I had written down in my log book: “A wet one on top was the way she traded. Dated were the rest, faded faux fur and cotton mesh. She came before I was ready for her. No lark.”
I fell asleep wondering what it sounded like to the mouse, feeling sort of bad about it. And this is nothing compared to what these NASA scientists are doing. I think they should try this on themselves first before they try it on mice. My guess is that this magnet would seriously realign or polarize their cells at a molecular level, likely inducing cancers and what not.
[...] Derek White quotes Derek White: “A wet one on top was the way she traded. Dated were the rest, faded faux fur and cotton mesh. She came before I was ready for her. No lark.” [...]