Part-human part-mouse brain developed in science breakthrough

theseamusjames

Great news: we're excellent at curing mice of diseases. All this time we've been trying to find drugs that have the same effect in humans as they do in mice, but until now no one has had the insight or bravery to ask the question, "What if we just made people more mouse?" Exciting stuff.

bygosh

> The scientists said their work, published in the journal Nature, was carried out with independent ethical scrutiny. oh, I guess there's nothing to be concerned about.

zhaoziyuan2000

Does this remind anyone of that novel Flowers for Algernon..?

LoganDark

I feel like it's going to be difficult to characterize how mental illness translates to mice, even if you get human cells in there. ("psychiatric diseases" = mental illness)

d--b

Sounds like “the scret of NIMH” an animated movie from the 80s, where intelligent mice escape a science lab. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Secret_of_NIMH

yieldcrv

> While mice with brains that are partly human might sound like a Kafkaesque experiment, the scientists said these are not "mice that think like humans". oh, thank god

bsimpson

They're Pinky and the Brain...yes: Pinky and the Brain...

autoexec

The article walks the headline back pretty quickly. Parts of human brains in mice becomes "pieces of brain-like tissue" made from skin cells and formed into "collections of connected, living cells" followed by a line on how there's "no indication that what's being created here are mice that can think like humans, or a human brain in a mouse body." and that the human cells started to look and function like the outer layer of the mouse's brain as opposed to looking or functioning like a part of a human brain. It's still kind of neat though and I hope it's actually somehow useful for something.

fnordpiglet

I for one welcome our part human part mouse brain overlords.

edoceo

Hook that thing up to the Torment Nexus and see what the next tech-bubble will be!

seydor

So now we have found a way to use brain organoids by grafting and growing them inside mouse heads. Those Frankenmice will be used as a platform from now on. I m looking forward to talk to the first language-capable Frankenmouse.