Dr. Lawrence A. Hansen has a double life he is proud to publicize in his writings and interviews. On one hand, he is a neuroscientist at one of the finest institutions in the country -- the University of California at San Diego. On the other hand, he is a member and a mouthpiece for People … Continue reading The Double Life of Dr. Lawrence A. Hansen
Tag: NIH
Solving the Brain: Animal research at the frontiers of Neuroscience
Regular readers of this blog will be familiar with the important role played by animal research in neuroscience, a post we published to mark Brain Awareness Week earlier this year covered but a tiny fraction of the work being done around the world. Meanwhile some neuroscientists have been thinking big...very big...with the launch of the … Continue reading Solving the Brain: Animal research at the frontiers of Neuroscience
Statement on Harvard’s Decision to Close the New England Primate Research Center
Speaking of Research is saddened to learn about Harvard's decision to wind down operations at the New England Primate Research Center (NEPRC) within the next two years. Over the years the Primate Center has contributed important discoveries in many fields, including AIDS, Parkinson's disease, primate retroviruses, addiction, cardiology and stem cells. The University cited difficult … Continue reading Statement on Harvard’s Decision to Close the New England Primate Research Center
A Public Conversation on Animal Ethics: The good, the bad, and the ugly
The UW-Madison recently hosted a conversation on the ethics of animal research between Rick Marolt, an opponent of animal research, and Robert Streiffer, a bioethicist at the university and member of the Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC). Here are some of my thoughts on this interesting exchange. The good: Above all, it is good … Continue reading A Public Conversation on Animal Ethics: The good, the bad, and the ugly
A Closer Look at How Animal Research Progresses from Idea to Study
Unfortunately, the “how” and “why” of the research process is of much less interest, and receives far less attention, than the “what did they find?!” part of research. The latter is what you’ll see—if we’re lucky from the science outreach perspective— on television, in the science and popular media, Facebook, Twitter, and conversations world-wide. Meanwhile, … Continue reading A Closer Look at How Animal Research Progresses from Idea to Study
The Golden Goose Awards
Politicians sometimes deride research based on the what they perceive as being "silly" titles of federal funded grants. If they spot a title that deals with "games", for example, they may assume it deals with some sort of amusement of little value to society, instead of a deep, powerful branch of mathematics that describes the behavior of … Continue reading The Golden Goose Awards
A welcome end to random-source dog and cat dealers
The National Institutes of Health has announced that starting October 1, 2012, NIH funds may no longer be used to buy cats from Class B dealers. A similar prohibition in the purchase of dogs from Class B dealers takes effect in 2015. Although dogs and cats constitute only small percentage of research animals, they have … Continue reading A welcome end to random-source dog and cat dealers
A Proposal for the Labeling of Medicines
In a recent poll conducted by Zogby, 2,100 adults in the U.S. were asked the following question. Do you agree or disagree with medical and scientific research that requires lab animals? The results showed a similar outcome to that of other recent polls. About 52% of the population approve of animal research in various degrees, about … Continue reading A Proposal for the Labeling of Medicines
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