Cutting-edge science
• A research team led by Richard Hanson of Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland has produced a colony of "supermice" whose physical abilities are the rodent equivalent of those of gifted humans. By modifying a single metabolism gene, researchers enhanced the mouse's ability to use body fat for energy, creating a mouse that can run five hours without stopping, live longer, and have three times as much sex as ordinary mice. According to Hanson, humans have exactly the same modifiable gene, "(b)ut this is not something that you'd do to a human. It's completely wrong." • It is well-known that methane released by cattle forms a significant amount of the greenhouse gases in some countries, but getting people to abruptly drop beef from their diets might be unrealistic. However, a senior researcher for the Queensland (Australia) government, Athol Klieve, told Agence France-Presse in December that it would be possible to transplant the stomach bacteria of kangaroos into cows to reduce cattle's gas-passing proclivity to the much gentler level of kangaroos' (since the latter have much more efficient digestive systems).