Scientific research can be even harder than I thought:
Laboratory mice tend to be more stressed when they can smell men, making them behave differently in experiments depending on whether they are handled by a man or a woman. The finding raises important questions about past research using mice, since animal studies generally don’t control for an experimenter’s sex.
Todd Gould at the University of Maryland began investigating this issue after his team couldn’t replicate a simple lab result. The experiment involved a “forced swim test”, in which researchers place mice in a tank of water and see how long they keep trying to swim for. When they stop swimming, the researchers take them out, unharmed.
In previous tests with male experimenters, mice tried to stay afloat for longer if they were given ketamine, an antidepressant. But when Polymnia Georgiou, a female researcher who was working in Gould’s team, carried out the test, the mice gave up quickly regardless of whether they were given ketamine. [“The sex of the researcher can influence results of mouse experiments,” Jonathan Moens, NewScientist (17 September 2022, paywall)]
In retrospect, it makes sense. But I still insist on being flabbergasted.
