Their once dead hearts beat again, they were paralysed but now they are walking, their muscles were weak, but they have been made strong – no, they are not a crew of vengeful zombies, they are the rat world's class of 2008.
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Bleary-eyed and weary of their captive lives, this year's batch of cynical lab dwellers has already seen what earlier generations merely dreamed of. Yet, given the lack of control they have over their lives, their disillusion is not surprising. After all, for every mouse that has been saved, scores have died in vain.
Of life and death
Grimly, the mice in the class of 2008 most likely to make the history books have already died. Eerily though, their hearts are still beating despite their bodies being long gone.
First they washed away most of the heart's cells, leaving only the collagen structure intact. This structure was then injected with heart cells from newborn rats and fed a nutrient-rich solution to help it grow.
In time they added some fluids and a pump to simulate blood pressure. And then, after a few days, in what some called a "eureka moment," the hearts started beating. Others however, called it a "Frankenstein moment," and immediately started sealing up all their pipes and scouring the classifieds for vicious imported cats.
The lame shall walk
In more research reported in Nature Medicine, US researchers outlined how paralysed rats can walk again – albeit not as well as before – and unconfirmed rumours have even spoken of a zombie-like shuffle.
In the long tradition of lab cruelty, the researchers started off by inflicting spinal cord injuries on the rats. They then observed the interesting mechanism by which some rats managed to restore some function to their paralysed limbs.
With the main nerves cut off, messages now reached the limbs by alternative routes. The researchers compared it to a major highway being closed, forcing traffic to take alternative smaller roads.
In another study from Nature Medicine, researchers described how they used stem cells to spur muscle growth in rats with muscular dystrophy.
Revenge
Bred to have muscular dystrophy, their spinal cord shattered, and with their hearts harvested, rodents half dead or half living may well be bent on revenge.
Yet, one final coincidence may save us from the hoards of bloodthirsty zombified rats hobbling down the highways to exact justice for themselves and their ancestors.
This ray of hope comes courtesy of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, which reports that the air in modern cities is so dirty as to wreak havoc with rodent sperm. In other words, out on the road the rodent numbers will soon dwindle, reducing them to a mere handful by the time they come marching down your street.
For how much longer air pollution will protect us is unclear. New scientific advances may offer some protection, but we cannot be certain.
What cannot be doubted though, is that somewhere in a lab a dead rat's heart is beating. There are no eyes or ears, no fur, tail, or skeleton, just the incessant thud, thud, of life.
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