Comment by tyre
9 months ago
I would be in favor of adding a standardized [in mice] to the titles of all HN submissions about medical breakthroughs. Most of them end up being in mice and many do not reproduce in humans. It would help, at a glance, to know how significant a study's results are.
Or alternatively, some marker to indicate the presence of an “only in mice” comment
Maybe we find out why things work in mice and not us.
This works in mice with small tumors for two weeks until the experiment ends. It's quite different form working in humans with big tumors for 5 years.
Mice are good for early tries. The researchers had 9 bacterias and only 1 was successful. Experiments in mice are cheaper and have less ethical problems than experiments in humans.
(Hey! They even injected the cancer cells in mice and waited a week until it grow. Nobody will approve that in humans.)