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Advertisement ZURICH, SWITZERLANDNearly 700 scientists representing 27 countries conve ned at the University of Zurich Monday to formally announce that their e xperimentation on mice has been motivated not by a desire to advance hum an knowledge, but out of sheer distaste for the furry little rodents. Above: White examines detested specimens in his Oxford lab. "As a man of science, I deal with facts, and the fact is that mice are gr oss," said Dr. Douglas White, chair of the Oxford biogenetics department and lifelong mouse-hater. "They're squirmy, scurrying little vermin, an d they make my skin crawl. I speak for all of my assembled colleagues wh en I say that the horrible little things deserve the worst we can dish o ut." According to a 500-word statement, scientists hate mice for "their beady little eyes," "their repulsive tails," and "the annoying little squeakin g sounds they make." At the press conference, several scientists detailed their involvement in the centuries-long ruse of "conducting experiments" and "curing disease s" "For years, I've used lab mice to research cell breakdown in living tissu eand I've been lucky enough to make some pretty important medical advan cements along the way," said researcher Ellen Gresham of the Harvard Ins titute for Advanced Studies. "But even if there were no scientific benef it to the work I do, I'd still experiment on mice, just to watch them su ffer." "The truth is, mice are particularly ill-suited for our tissue study," Gr esham added. "We could construct a computer model that would yield more accurate results, but we don't care." According to Gresham, scientists have enjoyed dissolving mice in acid, sp inning them in centrifuges, blowing them up in vacuum chambers, and forc ing them to navigate exit-free mazes for yearsall the while towering ab ove them, laughing. "Every high-pitched squeak from the holding area is a warm reminder that the mice desperately want to escape," said Dr. Frances Villalobos, a con tagious-disease researcher at the University of Mexico. "All they want t o do is get out from behind those bars so they can chew on everything, d efecate all over, and poke their filthy twitching faces into piles of ga rbage. Well, I know of at least 80 little test subjects who won't be doi ng any more of that. A University of Miami researcher injects dye into a mouse's eyeball Above: A University of Miami researcher injects dye into a mouse's eyebal l "for the heck of it." Villalobos said he spent six months writing a grant proposal that provide d him with funding to inject mice with the smallpox virus. "It kills me that I can't infect the control group," Villalobos said. "Un fortunately, if I infect them, I'll throw off my results. But once I com plete this experiment, I'll rotate the control group into the hot seat. After applauding the scientists for coming forward, anthropologist Brent Wrigley suggested that the hatred of mice may be the single most importa nt factor in the evolution of modern science. "Despising mice may have pushed humanity out of the Stone Age," Wrigley s aid. "After all, the cave habitats of early man must have been infested with the horrific little monsters. The entire history of human advanceme nt via the scientific method may be a byproduct of the higher forebrain' s natural revulsion toward the nasty critters." Mouse-killing isn't solely the province of organic and medical scientists . "As a physicist, I don't really have much cause to use mice in my regular research, which mostly requires the use of theoretical math," said Dr. Thomas Huber, author of the 1996 study Mouse Elasticity And Kinetic Rebo und In High-Acceleration Collisions. "But when I have the time, I like t o send them flying into walls. Even just seeing them in a cage makes me feel kind of good inside. I like knowing I'm depriving them of their fre edom, even if my research doesn't provide me the opportunity to cut them open."
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