Animals do the darnedest things: monkey vision
| September 15, 2009 | 10:01 AM
More journal entries from John Moore »
Monkeys may be helping scientists to get color blindness by the tail.
University of Washington researchers used gene therapy to fix the vision of two adult squirrel monkeys, named Dalton and Sam. The breakthrough with primate peepers may help lead to a cure for human color blindness. The eye disorder, which is more common in men than in women, causes an inability to see certain colors properly.
In the study, scientists injected a gene that detects the color red into the monkeys. Then they measured the animals’ ability to find colored dots on a background of grey ones, by training them to touch colored areas on a screen with their heads.
It all may sound a little bananas, but let’s hope researchers keep swinging for the senses.
Read more at nature.com.
More tales of animals doing the darnedest things:
- NASA scientists have levitated mice. Read more at physorg.com.
- In South Korea, an elephant is suspected of throwing a rock at a zoo visitor’s head. Read more at London’s Metro.
- In New Zealand, a dog crashed its owner’s car in to a cafe. Read more at TVNZ.
- In Montana, an 800-pound grizzly bear learned how to swim at a local pool. Read more at usatoday.com.
- A German family who heard screams in their cellar discovered it was a hedgehog stuck in a yogurt container. Read more at ananova.com
- In California, wild pigs ravaged a neighborhood. Read more at redding.com.
- Cattle wandered into a convenience store in Washington State. Read more at myfoxdc.
- In Norway, cows are producing more milk since being allowed to rest on comfy, rubberized mattresses. Read more at reuters.com.
- In Britain, an aquarium piped in Barry White music to get two sharks to breed, and it worked. Read more at ananova.com.
- A new species of giant python is invading Florida. Read more at nationalgeographic.com.
Animals do the darnedest things, color blindness, dog crashes car, giant python, hedgehog, levitated mice, monkeys, stone throwing elephant, wild pigs
