Rat trap: While the BBC and ABC both treat it as one more trip forward in the gee-whiz rush of science, the Guardian's James Meek argues that the idea of controlling rats through implants in their brains, turning the rats into 'ratbots', is wrong, is something that scientists should campaign against:
'The prospect of roborats is a glorious opportunity for scientists who carry out serious medical experiments on animals to stand up and try to put some ethical distance between what they do and animal work related to the military, or to abstract scientific curiosity. It can work. Ian Wilmut, the pioneer of animal cloning, has been tireless in his public condemnation of human reproductive cloning, calculating correctly that the broader cloning field will gain more than it will lose from greater public awareness of different kinds of cloning. There is little sign of mainstream scientists taking a similarly robust line on different kinds of animal experiments.' [Guardian].
Back at the Tyrell Corporation, the scientists are adamant that the rats like turning into robots: '"They work for pleasure," says Sanjiv Talwar, the bioengineer at the State University of New York who led the research team. One electrode stimulates the rat's medial forebrain bundle, or MFB, the "feelgood" centre of the mammalian brain. "The rat feels nirvana," Talwar says.' [Nature].
