Had any of you heard of this?
Apparently male researchers stress out their mice!
http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/male-researchers-stress-out-lab-rodents
This naturally means that depending on who is doing the research, results may be altered!
LOL, and apparently men smell bad…
“The stress men produced in mice and rats is equivalent to restraining them for 15 minutes in a tube or forcing them to swim for three minutes. This stress-induced reaction made mice and rats of both sexes less sensitive to pain.
With further tests, they found that the “shockingly stressful” effect of male experimenters was due to smell: an olfactory stimulation from a mixture of chemicals present in human sweat. The team was able to reproduce as strong of an effect just by placing cotton T-shirts worn the night before by men next to the rodents. “
That’s great! I just emailed my boss that I should take over all of the rat experiments (somewhat jokingly, but I do also think I’m more gentle with the creatures).. I’m the only girl who takes care of the rats in my lab!
Or maybe not if you want more IMPRESSIVE results. Perhaps if you want to get striking results and quick publication, you should invest in single male postdocs who never go home to shower :>>