I find this amusing to interpret literally. One can imagine the press conference :
"... and that's how we managed to make the mice transparent."
[Applause]
"Wonderful, professor. What about cats ?"
"Beg your pardon ?"
"You know, cats. Can this technique do cats as well ?"
"What ? Umm, no, sorry, just mice."
"What about chickens ?"
"No, only mice."
"Horses ?"
"Sorry, no, only mice for now."
"Surely this will work on dogs, though."
"Well...."
"Deer ? Ostriches ? Guinea fowl ?"
"Look, I'm sorry, but -"
"Are you really saying you've invented a technique that can turn mice transparent, but that's it ?"
[Embarrassed shuffling of feet]
".... yes."
"Well that seems awfully specific !"
"Look, I never said anything about guinea fowl or horses ! We only wanted to do mice ! Big mice ! Small mice ! Fat mice, skinny mice, fast mice, slow mice, any kind of mice you like ! Literally all of them ! Why can't you just be happy with the damn invisible mice ? How many times must I say it ? Isn't an invisible mouse impressive enough for you ? Honestly, I don't know why I bother."
"... I just wanted an invisible cat, is all."
https://www.biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/07/23/374785
https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-018-07336-7
😄😄
ReplyDeleteYesterday upon a stair
ReplyDeleteI met a mouse who wasn't there
I met him there again today
I wish, I wish he'd go away
https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/antigonish-i-met-man-who-wasnt-there
Would an invisible cat still be underfoot all the time? One large benefit, however: you could no longer detect their general air of disdain for all things non-cat.
ReplyDeleteHow fast could an invisible mouse run a maze? How could you tell? (Mouse-flap, I suppose...or pressure-sensitive land mine.)
Greg Roelofs There's also the question of cats who walk through walls.
ReplyDeleteEdward Morbius And what about Schrodinger's invisible cat? Does the wave function collapse if you can't observe it? I smell a Nobel!
ReplyDelete