Soon to be invading Japan, again. Via nationalgeographic.com.

Fifteen minutes after researchers intentionally paralyzed this rat by dropping a weight on its back, they injected the rodent with Brilliant Blue G dye, a derivative of common food coloring Blue Number One. The dye reduced inflammation of the spinal cord, which allowed the rats to take clumsy steps—but not walk—within weeks, a new study says.

In both rats and people, secondary inflammation following spinal cord trauma causes more lasting damage than the initial injury: Swelling sparks a small “stroke,” which stops blood flow and eventually kills off the surrounding tissue.

Other than blue skin and eyes, “we can find no clinical effect on the rat,” said Maiken Nedergaard, a neuroscientist at the University of Rochester Medical Center in Rochester, New York.

Six weeks after injecting the blue dye, the research team killed and dissected the treated rat to inspect its spinal cord …. —though not entirely without regrets. “It was so cute, that rat,” study co-author Nedergaard said.

The team was surprised to find that the spinal cord was still blue—the rat’s skin and eyes had returned to normal after one week.

With a blue complexion as the only side effect, the substance may someday be the first major intervention available for people with spinal cord trauma, Nedergaard said.

“The problem is we don’t have any treatment now,” she said, adding that steroids are currently the most common medication used to help spinal-trauma patients. “That was really what prompted the search. … As far as I can see, every patient can receive the blue food dye, because there’s no downside.”

Link and photo via nationalgeographic.com.

It’s a cat. With wings!

Okay, so they’re just bone growths. And they don’t flap. Nor can the cat fly. But look at it! Mutant kitty!

Irrational exuberance on my part aside, it seems no one knows how this cat, who was born normal, grew these bone ‘wings’. It’s just one of those awesome mutations that happen every now and then that makes so so happy that nature makes ‘mistakes’.

I, for one, welcome our new winged kitty overlords.

Article and more pictures here.

Edit: There is more than one!