Our lead veterinarian had a good interview in the paper, following the news that the CWD prion apparently occurs inside meat of infected deer.

In his usual, layman's manner, he described the research that had been done, feeding meat from infected deer to genetically altered mice. Now, these mice had their genetic code changed so that their brains produced deer proteins, rather than mouse nerve cell proteins. Hence making them highly susceptible to the chronic wasting disease prion, and the ideal biological assay tool to determine if the mouse was exposed to the CWD prion.

So, pretty strong, sensitive evidence that the prion occurs in meat of infected deer.

Which ain't entirely surprising, since the prion is a rogue nerve cell protein, and muscle tissue has nerves in it (else you could never move...).

The fun part of his explanation are the things you did not read in the popular news articles about this research (including the article for AP written by some doofus who doesn't know that CWD prions are different from mad-cow prions).

The researchers also tested mice that had been genetically altered to produce human nerve cell proteins. He called them "little humans". Not surprisingly, none of them got sick when fed infected deer meat. Again, supporting the supposition that human nerve proteins are too different from deer proteins to make us susceptible to the deer prion.

They also tested mice that were genetically altered to be, as he called them, "little elk".

Seeing as how elk are just large members of the deer family, and we already know thay can get CWD, it was no surprise that the "little elk" also died from the infected deer meat.

But what got the wife and I laughing, as we read the paper in bed, was the visual image of a laboratory full of "little elk" mice.

Do they have antlers? Can you envisage herds of these little things migrating across the laboratory floor, their antlers glistening in the flourescent lights?

Do the males spar with their antlers? Do they bugle? (Don't laugh. The grasshopper mouse howls like a wolf. Really.)

As serious as this research is, I can't get over the funny image of mice with elk antlers on them. How many points does it take to have a trophy? Five? Six? Do they get Royals, with seven tines?

I would love to have a herd of these things grazing in our back yard.

'Course, the frightening thing is, if I live long enough, I may be able to buy my own herd of genetically created elk-mice on eBay some time...