Beware the Ides of March.  It will bring you only links…
It is a slow business news day indeed when the most interesting article in the Wall Street Journal (reg required) is about a pack of narcoleptic dogs that have been serving science at Stanford University for the last 30 years. The dogs make popular class appearances where they will be shown a treat and, on cue, drop to the floor in a sleeplike state of “cataplexy”. 1 in 2000 humans suffers from some form of narcolepsy and the study of this highly unusual pack of dogs led to the isolation of the gene that causes the disease. Now, the dogs are being phased out in favor of continued studies on narcoleptic zebrafish. I know what you’re thinking, but evidently Stanford scientists are smart enough to know when a fish is sleeping.
In more humorous educational news, the Washington State Dept of Health uses a grizzled, angry talking turkey carcass to help smokers understand that their chances of quitting are better if they make a plan instead of trying to go “cold turkey”.

This entry was posted on Thursday, March 15th, 2007 at 6:55 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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