FOR University of Hawaii researchers, their breakthrough in cloning was a small step for rodents, but a giant leap for all kine mice. Life will never be
the same with cloningThe world suddenly learned this week that Hawaii is not just your average scientific backwater where university researchers spend years trying to create pineapples that aren't so pokey and beach sand that doesn't get lodged in your crotch. No, the recent disclosure that UH scientists have discovered how to clone mice means we are quite an advanced backwater.
The disclosure was not just a surprise to the world's scientific community, but also to Hawaii residents who had assumed that all major serious work at the university involved bickering incessantly about the Hawaiian studies program, re-christening buildings that had been named after dead white guys and the advanced study of softball-stadium bleacher design.
This new type of cloning of small furry critters has been dubbed the "Honolulu technique," which, ironically, also is the type of lap dancing that city Councilman Andy Mirikitani wanted outlawed in local strip clubs.
Cloning is pretty complicated, especially when you choose tiny animals like mice to work with. English cloners who developed Dolly explained their choice of animals in this way: "Sheep big. Mouse small."
ANYHOO, cloning is an extremely technical process. I know because I have received top secret notes kept by the university mice cloning researchers mapping their progress. The diary apparently was logged by an unnamed research graduate student.
"May 5, 1997: Wow! Look at all this space! And to think we were satisfied working out of Haunani Trask's equipment cabinet. Now we will be able to go from working with fleas to much larger animals like voles, or, God willing, mice.
"June 3, 1997: Cloning experiments are already showing promise although there have been some setbacks. Our first attempt resulted in three visually-impaired mice. But see how they run! They all ran after the farmer's wife, who cut off their tails with a carving knife. We had never seen such sight in our life. So it was back to the drawing board.
"Aug. 15, 1997: Success! We have bred a type of mouse that seems vertically inclined and has some understanding of numbers. Yesterday, he ran straight up the clock. When it struck one, he ran down again. Very curious.
"Sept. 23, 1997: Our English colleagues are taunting us. It seems they've now cloned an entirely black sheep that is able to give three bags of wool at a time. Must bear down!
"Nov. 12, 1997: Another setback. Our engineered mice are coming out asymmetrical. One could almost say, crooked. We have sent them to the Genetic Oddities Department to live with the crooked little cat, a crooked little rat and a couple of state senators.
"Dec. 24, 1997: All quiet. Not a creature is stirring.
"Jan. 21, 1998: By manipulating eggs and sperm, we have managed to produce two distinctly different types of mice. One seems to enjoy car horns, shopping and traffic and the other seems to like Matsumoto shave ice, plate lunches and surfing. For now, we refer to them as the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse. Research continues."
Well, the rest, as they say, is history. The scientists went on to perfect their mouse-making expertise, culminating, I understand, in perfectly perpendicular mice with exceptional eyesight; mice who cannot just run up clocks but tell the time of day in any time zone and mice that can function in either the town or country environment.
Perhaps now the scientists will get their own parking spots.
Charles Memminger, winner of
National Society of Newspaper Columnists
awards in 1994 and 1992, writes "Honolulu Lite"
Monday, Wednesday and Friday.
Write to him at the Honolulu Star-Bulletin,
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