What Mice Do When You're Not Looking
24/7 trackers give researchers insight into how mice mate, form social hierarchies, and more. Behold the rodent equivalent of 'Big Brother.' Turns out Americans aren't the only ones getting spied on lately. By hooking up groups of mice with precise trackers, researchers have gotten a closer look at how societies form. At least in mice, the answer is: fast. Weizmann Institute scientists introduced mice fitted with tracking chips into a square, 4-meter pen lined with video cameras. The scientists recorded the mice's movements 30 times a second for up to months at a time. (It's fun to imagine there were little mouse-propaganda posters advertising the Ministry of Truth or something, but alas, probably not.) The researchers, unsurprisingly, gathered a lot of data from the voyeurism: they learned when the mice ate and drank, when they slept or fought, and more. Eventually, the team could determine whether each mouse was an introvert...