A New Variable in Animal Research

Last week Douglas Main wrote an article about the McGill University study that discovered that rats become stressed in the presence of human men. It’s a potentially crucial experimental variable that has somehow gone unnoticed up until now. The researchers further explained that not only are women not affected, but rats seem to be fine with men in the presence of women. Lead Author Jeffrey Mogil suggests that rats may perceive a lone male to be a threat.

There hasn’t been a call to re-examine scientific protocol this serious* since the National Institute on Aging (NIA) reported that **rats were becoming too fat **for experiments.

*Or hilarious. Take your pick.