Newly Found "Supermouse" Immune To Poison

Mice have been a common problem for people for hundreds of years.  They are especially a problem when speaking on the topic of food, and its production.  It is a sad fact that this threat of disease is usually controlled by killing the mouse or mice responsible, and that poison is usually the method of choice.  Until now, this has been a useful method of getting rid of the problem.  Now, we have this little friend.

Meet the so-called "Supermouse".  The problem was brought to the attention of researchers by a German baker.  The baker had trouble with mice, and so he called in a pest control man to kill the creatures.  Obviously, you don't want mice in a place that sells food.  The pest control man treated the area with a particularly strong variant of warfarin (a common poison used to kill mice) called bromadiolone.  However, instead of dying, the mice continued to live.  This is where researchers stepped in.  So far, no European house mouse has been resistant to the poison.  The only mouse resistant to the poison lives in Algeria.  Through research, scientists found that the two varieties of mouse had interbred, causing the European mouse to be resistant to warfarin.  Interestingly enough, the same genetic coding that makes the mice resistant to the warfarin causes humans to have osteoporosis and arterial calcification.  It is not known yet whether or not these "Supermice" will suffer from these issues. 

Watch out for your cheese, Supermouse is on the prowl!

Photo from news.discovery.com