The following papers describe research with animals. Each study was reviewed and approved by an Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee which decided the study had adequately incorporated reduction, replacement, and refinement for the study to go forward.
Asher, Lucy, Gary C. W. England, Rebecca Sommerville, and Naomi D. Harvey. “Teenage Dogs? Evidence for Adolescent-Phase Conflict Behaviour and an Association between Attachment to Humans and Pubertal Timing in the Domestic Dog.” Biology Letters 16, no. 5 (May 27, 2020): 20200097. https://doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2020.0097 (Links to an external site.).
Banik, Debarghya Dutta, Eric D. Benfey, Laura E. Martin, Kristen E. Kay, Gregory C. Loney, Amy R. Nelson, Zachary C. Ahart, et al. “A Subset of Broadly Responsive Type III Taste Cells Contribute to the Detection of Bitter, Sweet and Umami Stimuli.” PLOS Genetics 16, no. 8 (August 13, 2020): e1008925. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgen.1008925 (Links to an external site.).
Hyde, David R., Alan R. Godwin, and Ryan Thummel. “In Vivo Electroporation of Morpholinos into the Regenerating Adult Zebrafish Tail Fin.” JoVE (Journal of Visualized Experiments), no. 61 (March 29, 2012): e3632. https://doi.org/10.3791/3632 (Links to an external site.).
Nakamura, K., H. H. Chung, M.S.A. Graziano, and C. G. Gross. “Dynamic Representation of Eye Position in the Parieto-Occipital Sulcus.” Journal of Neurophysiology 81, no. 5 (May 1, 1999): 2374–85. https://doi.org/10.1152/jn.1999.81.5.2374 (Links to an external site.).
Select ONE of the papers and write a 200-word response to the following questions:
Question 1
In one paragraph, summarize the research reported in the paper you selected. This information is provided in the methods section of the paper. In your paragraph answer, as best you can, the following questions:
What kinds of animals were used?
How many?
Were the animals used as model organisms? (think physiology and vivisection) Or as a kind of technology or methodological tool? (think bacteriology, inoculation, and serial passage of a virus through generations of animals).
Question 2
Using either an “animal rights” (think Tom Regan and Deontologists) or an “animal welfare” (think Peter Singer and Utilitarians) perspective, answer: is the research described in the paper you selected justifiable?