A fat mouse that was bred at Jackson Laboratory in Bar Harbor, Maine during the late 1940s/early 1950s. The researchers called him "Obese," or "O.B." for short. As in, that was his name, not just a description of what he was. Fat mice bred from Obese were used in the study of diabetes and obesity.
Newsweek - Apr 2, 1951
Ellen Ruppel Shell tells the story of Obese in her book
The Hungry Gene: The Inside Story of the Obesity Industry:
In 1947, a wildfire swept through Mount Desert Island and the laboratory, incinerating all but a scattering of the mice.
Little was determined to rebuild, and donations of mice — all of them originally bred at Jackson — poured back to the lab from around the United States, Canada, and Great Britain. Among these was a new mutant, the dystrophic mouse that
Coleman would use as his model for the study of muscular dystrophy. And two years later, another mutant suddenly appeared in the lab — a mouse with traits that would, some twenty years later, attract and hold Coleman's attention for the rest of his career.
An animal caretaker first spotted the creature huddled in a corner of its cage, grooming itself. It was furrier than most, but what really stood out was the size of the thing — it was hugely fat. The caretaker alerted doctoral candidate Margaret Dickie, who diagnosed the mouse as "pregnant." But there were problems with this theory. For one thing, the mouse never delivered a baby. And on closer inspection, it turned out to be male. The fat mouse ate three times the chow eaten by a normal mouse, pawing for hours at the bar of the food dispenser like an embittered gambler banging away at a recalcitrant slot machine. Between feedings it sat inert. It seemed to have been placed on this earth for no other purpose than to grow fat.
There had been other fat mice. The agouti mouse, named for its mottled yellow fur similar to that of the burrowing South American rodent, is, in its "lethal yellow" mutation, double the weight of the ordinary variety. But the fat agouti was svelte compared to the newcomer. This mouse was outlandish, a joke, a blob of fur splayed out on four dainty paws like a blimp on tricycle wheels. Rather than dart around the cage in mousy abandon, it was docile, phlegmatic, as though resigned to some unspeakable fate. Dickie and her colleagues christened the mouse "
obese," later abbreviated to "ob," and pronounced "O.B.," each letter drawn out in its own languid syllable.
From the June 1948 issue of--what else?--the ELKS MAGAZINE.
I was briefly in L.A. over the weekend, so I took the time to visit the
L.A. Pet Memorial, my curiosity about it having been piqued after posting recently about how
Blinky the Friendly Hen was buried there. It's up in northwest L.A., in Calabasas. If you're ever in the area, and want to do some sightseeing that's more off the beaten track, it's worth checking out. Some of the highlights below:
The coffin showroom, featuring pet-sized coffins
Inside the mausoleum
The grounds spread out over 8 acres. So the park is pretty big.
Yours truly by the grave of "Room 8" — the cat that lived at the Elysian Heights Elementary School. He was once known as the most famous cat in America.
Satan — We'll Miss You
Sir Pretzel Stick — I'll Remember You
Vicious — Our Precious Baby
I finally found the marker for Blinky the Friendly Hen. The front office didn't have a guide to the graves, so you have to find them on your own. Blinky turned out to be in the area directly across from the front office, about 8 rows back.
There's a number of other famous animals buried at the park, including Tawny the MGM lion, Hopalong Cassidy's horse, and one of the dogs from the Little Rascals. Plus, the pets of many celebrities are there — Charlie Chaplin's cat, Humphrey Bogart's dog, etc.
Researchers in Korea are developing a technology that will allow humans to control turtles through thought alone. This is achieved without having to implant any device inside the turtle's brain. Nor does it involve telekinetic powers.
It takes advantage of the fact that a turtle will reliably walk towards a white light, because of their instinctive escape behavior. So the turtle wears a "stimulation device" that blocks its view except in a specific direction that can be remotedly adjusted by a human wearing a "brain-computer interface." The interface can pick up simple thought commands: left, right, or idle. It then transmits the command to the turtle stimulation device, which adjusts its position, and the turtle walks in the desired direction.
The researchers note that their system "could have military applications such as reconnaissance and surveillance," and also "this system could be used in unconventional applications such as immersive virtual reality systems that give the user a sense of oneness with the controlled animal, as if it were their surrogate agent."
More info:
Science Daily
April 27, 1978: Artist Jeffrey Vallance bought a frozen chicken (a Foster Farms fryer) at a supermarket and then buried it at the
Los Angeles Pet Cemetery, following a brief memorial service. He also installed a grave marker for the frozen bird, naming it "Blinky the Friendly Hen." He came to think of Blinky's grave as being like the grave of the Unknown Chicken, representing "all the millions of chickens who are slaughtered and sold as food."
According to kcet.org, "Ten years later, he would have the body exhumed so an autopsy could be performed by UCLA's head of pathology. The tenth anniversary exhibit on the life of Blinky, at the Rosamund Felsen Gallery in Los Angeles, featured a 'shroud of Blinky,' and a recreation of the cemetery's viewing room, with a rubber chicken lying in state. Blinky was later reburied at the cemetery."
It seems that
there were also an event to mark the 30th anniversary of Blinky's funeral. The 40th anniversary is coming up next year, so perhaps there'll be another event in Blinky's honor.
Vallance also wrote a book commemmorating Blinky.
More info:
Black Acrylic blog
Bridgewater Courier-News - Nov 3, 1983
I hadn't realized that chickens were capable of deviant behavior of this kind. I mean, an entire mouse? Chickens eat mice?
More at
Chicken Hugs.
I want these at the Spencer's Gifts location in my local mall!
From THE ELKS MAGAZINE for October 1954.