The biomedical science, agricultural and pharmaceutical, wouldn't have advanced as they had done in the last century, had it not been for the existence of some anonymous organisms, generally of small sizes, that had been converted to 'guinea-pigs' for biomedical experimentation.
The Superior Counsel of Scientific Investigations in Catalunya has chosen 7 most ubiquitous and indispensable species, to honour them with a virtual exhibition titled 'Seres modelicos' - between nature and laboratory. (Model beings - http://seresmodelicos.csic.es)
These are: bateria, yeast, plant, worm, fly, fish and rat. They are all very small in size, reproduce quickly (the rat - Mus musculus - takes just 20 days for the reproductive cycle, and about 7 babies in 1 litter), often with multiple births, and grow fast, therefore easy to handle and plenty of supply. Also, they carry genes similar to humans.
I am not normally into this type of science, but what's meant to be a quick glance-over ended up detaining me there reading and looking at everything and, even more surprising, found it quite amazing and most interesting. It's all in Spanish though, I guess you can use web translation to read it in English or other language if you wish to.
I am not normally into this type of science, but what's meant to be a quick glance-over ended up detaining me there reading and looking at everything and, even more surprising, found it quite amazing and most interesting. It's all in Spanish though, I guess you can use web translation to read it in English or other language if you wish to.
I will never look at these tiny 'beings' again without appreciating how much contribution they had made to human kind. I mentioned this to a lady friend while we were in a coffee bar, and she said:
'Oh no, I can't look at it. It's so cruel. To think that some of them have the life span of only 10 to 15 days (Drosophila melanogaster - the fly) and they spent all that time being used for experiments then just die without having lived their own life at all, and getting no reward for their sacrifice.'
I thought about that afterwards and I think, if my life should be that short, just a few days or weeks, but during that time I had done great things like they had, helping millions and millions of people having a better, healthier and happier life, shouldn't that be a worthy reward for me? There are people who live to a hundred or more years, but have done nothing with their life, just wasting time idly existing, or even existing to do bad things to others, maybe be even killing someone just for the fun of it; would that be considered having lived?
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