• w3dd1e@lemmy.zip
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    6 days ago

    For those who don’t know, this is how some labs use rats and mice when the are uncooperative. I don’t think the intent is to hurt the mouse, just to contain it briefly.

    Not saying it’s okay or not okay. Just saying why it’s like this.

    • Swedneck@discuss.tchncs.de
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      6 days ago

      it definitely doesn’t hurt the mouse, maybe they’re a bit uncomfortable but it’s just all-round the best solution for everyone involved

      • BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works
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        6 days ago

        Uncomfortable?!! No. I’ve had plenty of those serotonin potatoes as pets and they love tight spaces. A Sputnik-House is made for 2-3 rats.

        Well, 7 can fit in there, the 8th just had the head in there.

      • MrScottyTay@sh.itjust.works
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        6 days ago

        Best solution would be to not use antiquated systems for testing for human consumption, a method that isn’t even that indicative of how it would react to a human anyway.

        • Narauko@lemmy.world
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          6 days ago

          You will never get human trials for anything that hasn’t passed animal testing until we have lab grown human organs/organ systems, but that is a ways out and also somewhat controversial. Coning partial people or parts of people needs a lot of safeguards.

          • wabasso@lemmy.ca
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            5 days ago

            Curious if you’re thinking of any cases where we’d need a safeguard for any parts of the body other than the brain? Like would a whole human minus the brain be OK?

            I guess there’s the whole identity theft and impersonation side of things.

            • Narauko@lemmy.world
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              5 days ago

              The main concerns I see are if it is actually only individual organs, and things like your rights to your own genetic code/cell lines.

              • wabasso@lemmy.ca
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                3 days ago

                Yeah but can you give more details? Like what’s an example of something bad happening if it’s more than individual organs, like your entire body minus your head for example.

                • Narauko@lemmy.world
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                  3 days ago

                  Like Henrietta Lacks, who I mention in another reply, who had her cells harvested from a cervical cancer treatment and propagated indefinitely to be used as human medical specimens. Pharmaceutical companies have already attempted patenting portions of the human genome, so having them take sections of your personal genome if you have an allele mutation they find profitable is a concern. Using your genetic code like an advertising fingerprint to sell you treatments or services. Selling that data to third parties. Making registries of people with specific genetics for use by Governments to regulate or oppress, either eugenically or ethnically.

                  There are multiple movies where instead of growing individual organs they clone people for harvest, which I would hope is just too far beyond the pale to ever leave Hollywood but, then I remember shit like Unit 731 and Josef Mengele. That last one isn’t really a real fear, but had to mention it.

                • Narauko@lemmy.world
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                  5 days ago

                  Exactly what I am talking about along with the immortalized cell lines stolen from minorities. I have no problems with people donating themselves to science or being appropriately compensated with thoroughly informed consent, the advances to science are critical. I just don’t want the biomedical equivalent of OpenAI stealing IP happening to make the 0.1% even richer.

        • BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works
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          6 days ago

          Rats are cool for testing cancer. You feel a lump the size of a pea in the morning, call the vet, and by the time you have an appointment in the evening it’s grown to the size of a pecan.

      • Pup Biru@aussie.zone
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        5 days ago

        yeah! animal testing only exists to cause harm! outcomes are irrelevant - science gets off on beating up animals and THATS why animal testing exists… those sadistic pricks

        • JamesBoeing737MAX@sopuli.xyz
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          5 days ago

          I didn’t say it’s useless, but people do enjoy beating the shit out of animals. And also some research about vulnerable minorities gets screwed over because of animal testing example: autistic mice: lead and microplastic poisoning the mice and observing their behaviour. If we fed mice a shitload of fried chicken and called them N mice, the media would be mad as shit, but of course it’s completely fine when it’s not a recognized minority.

    • enumerator4829@sh.itjust.works
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      5 days ago

      Computational biochemistry is slowly getting there. Alphafold was a big breakthrough, and there is plenty of ongoing research simulating more and more.

      We can probably never get rid of animal testing entirely for clinical research, we’ll always need to validate simulations in animals before moving on to humans.

      I do however agree that animal testing outside of clinical research approved by a competent independent ethics committee can fuck right off. (Looking at you, cosmetics industry)

      • AlolanYoda@mander.xyz
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        5 days ago

        We can probably never get rid of animal testing entirely for clinical research, we’ll always need to validate simulations in animals before moving on to humans.

        Getting rid of animal testing is the exact purpose of organ-on-a-chip research! This is actual bioengineered cultures, not simulations (not dissing on computational biochemistry - also extremely important)

        If you can test without the full animal, then models (in this context, models = what you use for testing, be it cultures or animals) based on human induced pluropotent stem cells (ie cells taken from live, adult humans and forced to revert to a stem cell status) in an in vitro setting can actually be more relevant to human physiology than live animal models.

        There are a lot of caveats (if it were easy, it would already be done), and there are barriers needed to be overcome for in vitro models to even come close to in vivo and ex vivo models. But a lot of people are investing in it, not (only) due to ethics but also due to lower model cost and better match of in vitro results with the actual effect on a live human body.

        I can give papers when I get home, if you want.

        Edit: I went on a deep dive on medical applications: suffice it to say, this is useless for behavioral experiments

    • MrFinnbean@lemmy.world
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      5 days ago

      Yeah. Fuck those scientists. Especially the ones that have created life saving things like penicilling, insuling. And its so shitty they used lab rats to test useless things like covid vaccines lately. I mean why to use poor rats. They could just have tested the vaccines with poor people.

      And fuck cancer treatment too. Lets just treat people blindly, they are going to die anyway, why not make their last moments suffering just because you like mouses. Maybe we just should stop trying to cure cancer.

  • stray@pawb.social
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    6 days ago

    Can images of animal abuse please be labeled as such and get a NSFW blur please?

      • stray@pawb.social
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        6 days ago

        It’s been put forth that we should have other kinds of censor tags on Lemmy, but NSFW is currently the only one supported. It’s been used here and on other sites for disturbing imagery of murders, spiders for arachnophobes, etc. Even without that, a text tag of [animal abuse] facilitates the use of client-side content filters.

        • lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com
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          5 days ago

          Even so, still not NSFW. Wondering “It’s tagged NSFW but is it actually NSFW?” creates its own predicaments & nuisances.

          Better not to misappropriate tags that serve a definite function.

      • angrystego@lemmy.world
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        6 days ago

        They didn’t say it’s NSFW, just that they’d appreciate the blur. Not everyone wants to look at such things randomly.

          • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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            6 days ago

            Animal abuse is both.

            Right or wrong on whether this qualifies (I don’t think it does, personally, especially compared to what else happens to lab rats) you’re disagreeing on whether it counts and using dishonest rhetoric to try and reframe the dispute.

            • lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com
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              6 days ago

              Dishonest rhetoric? You’re speaking of yourself by twisting NSFW. Words mean things, not whatever you want them to mean.

              An image of a rat in an open piping bag doesn’t ordinarily result in disciplinary action at work.

      • stray@pawb.social
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        6 days ago

        Do I need to look at images of dead Palestinian kids too? Does wanting to go about my day in a measure of peace mean I don’t really care?

      • apotheotic (she/her)@beehaw.org
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        6 days ago

        That’s how the meat industry thrives, for sure. However you can protest against things and also not want to see them uncensored on your feed

    • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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      5 days ago

      Putting your head in the sand is not a good way to engage with the world.

      This is what your beef comes from, for example. (from wikipidia fyi)

      Ether accept that like nature itself we are often monstrous, or do something about it (and be laughed at most likely).

      • stray@pawb.social
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        6 days ago

        I’m literally eating vegan nuggets right now, but thanks for being an ass.

        • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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          5 days ago

          Oh, I am not vegan. I just hate when people try and sanitize their view of the world.

            • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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              5 days ago

              Do you think the people working with livestock are vegan?

              I worked with cows (a dairy operation) as a young worker. I like cows, but I also know that they don’t really exist in the wild as we know them.

              • apotheotic (she/her)@beehaw.org
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                5 days ago

                I don’t think that, no, but I still can’t comprehend what it must be like to live inside a brain that can be so desensitised to this cruelty.

                • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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                  5 days ago

                  ? Its life, its often both wonderful and cruel.

                  I have a hard time understanding what the inside of a mind that can not engage with reality as it is is like.

                  I am a big proponent of everyone at some point butchering their own food at least once.

        • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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          5 days ago

          That is my very point. It is not censored in wikipedia (and it should not be), why would it need that here?

          If you want to ban me over it please do, but I don’t think science (memes or otherwise) and censorship are compatible.

          • fossilesque@mander.xyzOPM
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            5 days ago

            Nah, fam. I let people have opinions, but I have to remove it. I asked nicely. It’s about common courtesy, not ideology.

            • M0oP0o@mander.xyz
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              5 days ago

              Fair enough, I think my point stands well with the removal. Mind if I link to the wiki article on slaughterhouses (since there will be no image)?