The Singing Mouse (+ Video)

At the end of 2010, Japanese scientists came with shocking news; according to them, one of their experiments with genetically modified mice ended up with an artificial "evolution" of studied mice. Those mice are now capable to produce sounds very similar to birds.

The "lucky" research team has worked in their "Evolved Mouse Project" at the University of Osaka, Japan, cross-breeding genetically modified mice to see what mutations would appear in future generations.

According to the lead researcher Arikuni Uchimura, the researchers spent a lot of time studying mutations in mice; they have already produced "a mouse with short limbs and a tail like a dachshund", and were expecting mice with physical mutations when one day one of their newly born mice started "singing like a bird".

Now, there are more than 100 "singing mice" for further research at the Osaka University's Graduate School of Frontier Biosciences in western Japan.

How is it possible?

Genetic engineering techniques have been widely applied in various fields including research, biotechnology, and medicine during recent decades, and we all know that we get cheaper medicines and crops resistant to insect and/or herbicide tolerant, but the essence of this technique often remains unclear to us, the non-scientists. According to encyclopedic sources, genetic engineering consists in the direct manipulation by man of an organism's genetic material in a way that does not occur under natural conditions. The most common form of genetic engineering involves the insertion of new genetic material at an unspecified location in the host genome. Any organism that is generated using these techniques is considered to be a genetically modified organism.

What does it give us?

Many researchers study songbirds in order to understand the origins of human language, and the Japanese researchers hope to provide clues on how human language evolved, considering that mice are better than birds in such researches, due to their resemblance to humans.

The interest in studying these mice is also nourished by the fact that the mice tweet louder in various conditions, suggesting that "mice songs" could be expressions of their emotions. Therefore, Japanese researchers are eager to continue their studies, hoping to produce a real Mickey Mouse some day.

Singing mouse (video)

Source: Japanese researchers create singing mice