[silicaroach]

In a nutshell, they induced the symptoms of hypothermia (shivering, etc.) in a monkey "model" (biologist code for a real living monkey). One of the 'stunning' findings from the data was that monkey body temperature control is more complicated than that of white mice "models". And the conclusion is that being able to induce hypothermia is a step towards human hibernation ... wtf?

Typical of biology, it's not obvious that the results were expected. On the contrary b/c biology lacks first principles most experiments are done on a "let's see what happens when we ...". That seems fine until you understand the approach is being used on living creatures.

Biology is butterfly collecting and animal torture.

[tleilaxu]

Eeesh. I really do not like using language in that way (“model”) to dehumanise in such a way that makes us feel better. I think it says quite a bit about the speaker.

Perhaps sometimes things require testing on animals, but the best we can do is keep reminding ourselves of precisely what we’re doing. If we can’t stomach saying “the monkey”, then maybe that says something!