Comment by throw10920
14 hours ago
> Isn't this just...black-body radiation?
I think that they explicitly controlled for that. From the article:
> The results revealed that despite both groups having the same body temperature of 37°C, the live mice showed robust emissions, whereas the UPE from the euthanized mice was nearly extinguished.
It's possible that they controlled improperly, but that's another question - from my reading of the above, they artificially heated the corpses (or measured immediately after death) to control for blackbody radiation.
Did they kill those mice just so they could see whether they stopped glowing when they died? :/
Could be, yes. Mice have it real bad in labs. Many people have commented over the years about not being able to pursue their careers doing lab work because of all the abuse on mice. One of those uncomfortable realities we live in; the mice have allowed us to make so many discoveries but it's a bit macabre how it all works.
humans kill animals by hundreds of millions every single day, i have trouble understanding the furor caused specifically by lab experiments which are likely significantly more beneficial than the median slaughter
... assuming you live in a western society, how do you feel about the hundreds of thousands of middle eastern people we kill (with the U.S. doing most of the dirty work) so you can have cheap oil? Do you think about it?
I'm not trying to be confrontational (though obviously this is a loaded and maybe unfair question). To me, that knowledge leads me to the conclusion that enjoying the fruits of civilization requires killing. That is, the line is between purposeful versus gratuitous killings. So I'm untroubled by killing mice for medical experiments. I'm curious what thought process allows people to register the killing of mice. Do you live in a state of distress about your own existence?