gip and today's cool thing that scientists got to do

[firecat]

Via suzimoses, I learn that scientists have created mouse-human hybrids...well OK, the only hybrid part is a set of genes coding for human-type trichromatic color vision, otherwise they are mice.

Carl Zimmer's blog The Loom (syndicated at carlzimmer) contains an interesting discussion of the result - the mice's brains can actually interpret what they are seeing, even though their brains aren't specifically designed to interpret the extra color information.

http://scienceblogs.com/loom/2007/03/22/said_the_mouse_to_the_other_mo.php

Also it contains an image I couldn't resist iconifying.