Rodents

A Scientific First: Lab-Grown Eggs Produce Healthy Mice

The birth of baby mice made from eggs grown in a lab has sparked an ethical debate over whether the technique should ever be offered for humans by fertility clinics.
The experiment is a step up (or down, depending on how you look at it) from creating human organs from stem cells, which scientists at the University of Edinburgh successfully did for the first time in 2014.

Could Antibiotic Use Lead to Type 1 Diabetes?

In a new study, researchers found that repeated treatments with antibiotics increased the risk of Type 1 diabetes in the rodents. [1]
The finding is harrowing, considering that approximately half of all prescriptions written for antibiotics in the United States are inappropriate and that a recent study found that antibiotics are prescribed to children about twice as often as they should be. [2]

Flea from Lake Tahoe Area Tests Positive for Plague

If you plan on visiting Lake Tahoe (a large freshwater lake in the Sierra Nevada of the U.S.) anytime in the near future, you might want to make sure you’re thoroughly covered up and wearing some sort of natural insect repellent. A flea from a yellow chipmunk in the area tested positive for plague, the U.S. Forest Service announced June 6.