| arya | Date: Tuesday, 15-November-2011, 6:16 PM | Message # 1 |
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| Scientists have created a "mighty mouse" after tweaking a single gene to boost the muscles and enable it to run more than a mile without getting tired.
Mice which were genetically altered were able to run almost 50 per cent further and for 20 minutes longer than their normal cousins.
Although the mice developed slightly larger muscles, they did not need to eat any more than usual and were virtually indistinguishable from the outside other than by their vastly improved endurance.
The study, published in the Cell journal, could help scientists develop drugs to keep the muscles healthy in old age and find treatments for muscle-wasting diseases.
The researchers, from the University of Lausanne and the EPFL University in Switzerland, were not the first to produce "mighty mice" but said their work held greater potential for medical research.
While previous studies have focused on improving the way muscles use glucose – giving them much more explosive power – the latest experiment used a different gene which controls the way they burn fatty acids.
Full article/source - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science....se.html
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