Escape of the lab rats…
Slightly spooky story on Nature News today, about the disappearance of three lab mice infected with the plague (or rather, a bacteria that causes the (bubonic) plague). It’s slightly odd - there were three groups of mice with different vaccinations, and one mouse was lost from each group. I’m not sure whether the mice were all together or not - if they were in separate cages, that seems like a pretty unlikely coincidence. If they were all together, then if you were losing mice at random, then you’ve got a 20% chance of losing one of each if my back of the envelope calculation is right, which isn’t so unbelievable (see? Maths is useful everywhere!)
It seems that the media haven’t got a hold of this one, or have decided that it’s not worth trying to scare everyone to death over the possibility of a plague outbreak (in reality, it’s not an issue - in the old days the plague was actually spread by fleas that came with the mice/rats, rather than the rats itself, so we’re not really in danger of an outbreak. And apparently a couple of thousand people catch the plague each year anyway, and it can be treated by antibiotics.) But even so, if three mice can just vanish, you’ve got to wonder about security procedures.
Or maybe the mice are smarter than they look…