Hold on to your cheese, SuperForesters!
Scientists at Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California announced on Wednesday that in a laboratory, using magnetic waves, they have levitated a mouse. And apparently, they can do it for prolonged periods of time. They can float mice for so long, in fact, that they’ve built special floating cages to house the mice!
The researchers first levitated a young mouse, just three-week-old and weighing 10 grams. It appeared agitated and disoriented, seemingly trying to hold on to something.
“It actually kicked around and started to spin, and without friction, it could spin faster and faster, and we think that made it even more disoriented,” said researcher Yuanming Liu, a physicist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. They decided to mildly sedate the next mouse they levitated, which seemed content with floating.
A plastic cage was also designed by physicist Da-Ming Zhu at the University of Missouri, Kansas City, to keep the mice in during levitation. Its top remained open to let in air, food, water and video surveillance, and its bottom was filled with small holes to allow waste removal.
From time to time, mice would kick the walls of the cage, causing it to briefly drop off from the levitation zone before re-entering it and floating again.”
Levitating mice in a levitating cage.
2010 is going to be so much fun.
Read all ’bout it here!
Cheers to SuperForester Ben for sending this in!
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