Today in Mice

Researchers from the University of Wisconsin-Madison have found that negligent parenting is caused by a mixture of environmental and genetic factors, and might be linked to the brain signaling chemical dopamine.

A new study in the Journal of Physiology says that a mother's diet has profound impacts on the health of her baby. Adam Watkins and his colleagues have shown that, even as the egg first leaves the ovary and starts to mature, nutritional deficiencies in the mother can significantly affect it.

Untold numbers of laboratory rodents have been dispatched so that humans could know with certainty that all manner of substances are carcinogenic or otherwise deadly. But in a welcome turnabout, scientists from Sapporo Medical University in Japan reported recently in the journal Nature Biotechnology that they have used synthetic molecules to cure rats of cirrhosis.

Typically considered a pathology rather than a therapy, starvation has been found to lead to dramatically better results for mice undergoing chemotherapy treatment.

We're not saying you should drink six to eight cups of coffee a day, necessarily, but if you do, you might be less likely to develop multiple sclerosis.

Researchers paying really, really close attention to mice having sex have discovered that males make high-pitched squeals during sexual interactions with females. That's more, the high-frequency vocalizations tell us something about ourselves.

In recent years, several studies have suggested that green tea has certain anti-cancer properties. The tea contains high amounts of the antioxidant EGCG, which protects cells in the body, but research has been limited, and the exact nature of the anti-cancer mechanism in green tea and EGCG has yet to be understood.

Men, we've got good news and bad news. The good news is German scientists have generated artificial sperm to help infertile males have children. The bad news: Men might become ... well, unnecessary. (Ladies, you can insert your own joke here.)

New research shows that exercise could be the key to avoiding gallstones.

It wasn't so disconcerting to learn that wild chimps use tools for eating, grooming, and defending themselves. Chimps, after all, are members of the great apes and almost identical genetically to humans. But now, in a development sure to give paws, er, pause to all owners of opposable thumbs, researchers at the Institute of Physical and Chemical Research in Japan (RIKEN) have taught rodents to use tools.