NIFTY SNIFFERS: Sensory neurons in the olfactory organs of mice are incredibly plastic.© ISTOCK.COM/JOE ZELLNER
A few years ago, Pei Sabrina Xu, then a graduate student in Timothy Holy’s lab at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, was trying to design an enclosure for mice that allowed males to smell (but not interact with) females, and vice versa. The animals were usually kept in separate cages, but Xu wanted them to be exposed directly to chemicals released by the other sex.
She brought up the project at a lab meeting, and one of her colleagues suggested that she create a stacked enclosure. She could house the females in the top half and the males in the lower, or vice versa, allowing the urine from the upper deck to drip down into the lower layer. Xu headed to the ...
