8 facts about laboratory animals
24th of April is the Laboratory animals protection day. We cannot imagine any scientific research without them nowadays. Let us introduce them to you more closely, then it was before this moment.
- Veterinary Brianna Gaskill started to give her mice paper sheets, so they could build a nest for themselves. It turned out to decrease stress of subjects and stimulates reproduction
- Guinea pig, like humans and primates, cannot synthesize vitamin C, due to this fact – they are perfect for studying scurvy
- The biggest hope and attention as an alternative or substitute for laboratory animals holds organ-on-chip. A simplified resemblance of an organ, which is able to perform some of its functions, is grown on an electronic base.
- Cancer-causing virus was for the first time found at hen
- The most popular laboratory animal are mice (95% of total amount), their contenders are fishes “Danio rerio” – 70% mutual genes with human, rapid reproduction, embryos develop outside the maternal body
- The selection of laboratory animals runs on various criterion: high metabolism, high rate of growth and development, small body size, great fertility, short pregnancy, ability to rear offspring in a short time
- We have to catch squids to conduct studies with them – people still have not learned how to breed them. Squid is one of the best models for researching nervous system and its diseases.
- Ferrets are able to be sick with the flu, it is promoting for vaccine development, also they are participating in reproduction system studies
