Why should a physicist or a chemist care about the endless public debate over the use of research animals? Almost every scientist knows the creatures are crucial for progress in biology and medicine. And scientists are fed up with the clamor being raised by folks who seem to care less about the human animal than about the lab animal.
Well, it turns out that something has been quietly happening in the laboratory, something that might resolve some of the debate and which is changing the way science is done. It turns out scientists are beginning to care more about their experimental subjects, even to the point of trying to keep them "happy." (see story, page 3)
At the University of Houston, for example, endocrinologists have devised high-tech radio monitors so they can throw out the traditional restraining chair for their monkeys. At the University of California, San Francisco, a physiologist ...
