> In the latest experiments in mice whose hair was physically aged by plucking and forced regrowth ... edit: The researchers in this case decided to pluck ha

> In the latest experiments in mice whose hair was physically aged by plucking and forced regrowth ... edit: The researchers in this case decided to pluck hairs from young mice repeatedly until it started growing in grey instead of just looking at grey hairs on older lab mice. I think with animal research there needs to be a careful balance struck between the amount of pain/harm caused to the animal and the potential good that can come from the research. Like, in animal studies that are done to try to prevent future cancer deaths, purposefully inducing cancer in lab rats is defensible. In this case, without looking at the research paper to get more details, it sounds like they basically tortured live lab mice without a defensible reason, due to the fact that alternative methods were available. Their methodology also makes the results less useful for the thing they were trying to research. Instead of knowing that stem cells exist but get stuck in older mammals who go grey, we instead know that if you repeatedly pluck out your own hair while you're young and then you go grey where you plucked out your hair, it's likely due to stem cells getting stuck.