Song Challenge: Levitating Mice...

Subject: Song Challenge: Levitating Mice...
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Sep 09 - 07:59 AM

I'm NOT making this up, guys...

http://www.reuters.com/article/scienceNews/idUSTRE58A02G20090911

U.S. scientists levitate mice to study low gravity
Fri Sep 11, 2009 8:23am EDT
By Dan Whitcomb

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Scientists at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory have succeeded in levitating mice, a feat that they say could lead to advances in treating bone loss for astronauts living for extended periods in low gravity environments.

Jet Propulsion Laboratory physicist Yuanming Liu said in an interview on Thursday that the mice were levitated using a device called a no gravity simulator, which is powered by a superconducting gradient magnet.

"The reason we want to levitate mice is we are aware of the situation that astronauts who stay in micro-gravity environments long enough might lose some bone mass," Liu told Reuters.

"By levitating mice we can simulate similar conditions and we can study whether
bone loss will actually occur in mice, and that will help us understand more about the bone loss that might occur in astronauts," he said.

Liu said the second stage of experimentation will involve having the mice live in the levitator for a week or longer to see what physical effects result.

"We first tried a fully conscious mouse and he didn't like it very much, he started to spin and got disoriented," Liu said.

"Mice like to grab onto something and so by just floating in the air it's really different for (the mouse) to adjust to," he said.

A second experiment was conducted with a mouse that had been partially sedated by a veterinarian, and that rodent calmed down considerably as he floated in the air.

According to a paper published by Liu and his colleagues, under repeated levitation even mice that were not sedated began acting normally inside the special cage, eating and drinking while they floated off the surface.

(Editing by Vicki Allen)

© Thomson Reuters 2009 All rights reserved

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Levitating Mice...
From: SINSULL
Date: 28 Sep 09 - 08:08 AM

My body id floating in space.
My soul is in orbit with god face to face.
Flying flipping floating tripping
Tripping from potsville to main line...


Oh wait. That's been done before.

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Levitating Mice...
From: Mr Happy
Date: 28 Sep 09 - 08:11 AM

Die Fliedermice??

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Levitating Mice...
From: The Fooles Troupe
Date: 28 Sep 09 - 07:20 PM

A while ago, I heard that field of nearly 30 Tesla was needed to levitate much smaller objects than mice - wasn't there concern about intense magnetic fields causing brian cells to fire?

Wonder what the mice think - and are they brain fried?

Good start...

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Levitating Mice...
From: Amos
Date: 28 Sep 09 - 07:27 PM

Come fly with me, let's fly up in the lab
We'll take trip like hippies hip
A high they never had!
We don't need drugs or sexual depravity
We'll fly away on anti-gravity!
Come fly with me!
Come fly, up in the lab!

Subject: RE: Song Challenge: Levitating Mice...
From: bubblyrat
Date: 28 Sep 09 - 07:33 PM

Brian cells ? Like in "The Magic Roundabout ", man ?? I'm up for some of those !