Of Men and Mice

Outside/In

NHPR

Society & Culture, Documentary, Natural Sciences, Nature, Science

4.7 • 1.5K Ratings

🗓️ 3 December 2025

⏱️ 39 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

At any given time, millions of lab mice are being used in research facilities nationwide. And yet nearly all of them can be connected back to a single source: The Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine, where the modern lab mouse was invented. What started as a research project aimed at understanding heredity is now a global business. Research on lab mice has led to more than two dozen Nobel prizes, helped save countless human lives, and has pushed science and medicine to new heights. But behind it all is a cost that’s rarely discussed outside of the ethics boards that determine how lab mice are used. In this episode, we hear the story of how a leading eugenicist turned the humble mouse from a household pest into science’s number one guinea pig. Plus, we get a rare peek inside the Jackson Laboratory - where over 10,000 strains of lab mice DNA are kept cryogenically frozen. Featuring Bethany Brookshire, Kristin Blanchette, Lon Cardon, Rachael Pelletier, Karen Rader, Nadia Rosenthal and Mark Wanner. Produced by Jeongyoon Han. For a transcript and full list of credits, go to outsideinradio.org. Note: This episode originally aired in April, 2023. SUPPORT Outside/In is made possible with listener support. Click here to become a sustaining member of Outside/In. Follow Outside/In on Instagram or join our private discussion group on Facebook. Submit a question to the “Outside/Inbox.” We answer queries about the natural world, climate change, sustainability, and human evolution. You can send a voice memo to outsidein@nhpr.org or leave a message on our hotline, 1-844-GO-OTTER (844-466-8837). LINKS Karen Rader’s book, Making Mice: Standardizing Animals for American Biomedical Research, 1900-1955, is a definitive source on the birth of the lab mouse… Curious to learn more about pests? Take a look at Bethany Brookshire’s book, Pests: How Humans Create Villains. This piece from the New Yorker questions the assumptions and ethical choices scientists have made by using lab mice in sterilized lab environments. In this New York Times essay, Brandon Keim explores how some ethicists want to reduce harm to animals used for research through a new model: repaying them. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	Do you want to make a mouse happy?
0:04.0	Because nothing makes a mouse happier than a fruit loop.
0:07.7	You give a mouse a fruit loop?
0:09.4	Oh, man, it's like watching a human eat a car tire.
0:13.6	Bethany Brookshire is an author and journalist.
0:17.2	And while plenty of people see mice as pests, she is a special place for them in her heart.
0:22.6	They eat it all in one sitting.
0:24.6	They end and they're like measurably larger than when they began.
0:28.6	That's amazing.
0:29.6	And then they just flop off in the cage to sleep it off.
0:32.6	And wait, that's just a single fruit loop, right?
0:34.6	It's so cute, yes, yes.
0:36.6	Bethany doesn't know about the fruit loop, right? It's so cute. Yes. Yes.
0:41.8	Bethany doesn't know about the fruit loop thing because she keeps mice as pets.
0:48.1	She knows about this stuff because, in a previous life, she used to work as a biomedical pharmacologist studying treatments for things like chronic depression and ADHD.
0:52.4	And so I would give them their little injection.
0:54.4	And most of the injections are given in their little bellies.
0:58.8	So you just pick them up in one hand and you tuck the tail with your pinky because otherwise
1:02.7	they'll get it in the way.
1:04.1	And you just give them a little quick shot.
1:05.9	And then you put them back in.
1:08.4	And I would do this at the beginning and at the end of every day.
	...

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