If I had any power of concentration, scientific aptitude, and the ability to pronounce multisyllabic words, I might have considered being a scientific researcher.

Knowing that I possess none of the above qualities I am content to read about what scientists are doing, the questions they pose for themselves and the swipes they take at other scientists who are going down a different road to achieve the same results.

Anti aging is a biggie.

Tests begin on drugs that may slow aging reported the Times, confirmed my thoughts about a day in the life of being a researcher. For example, as the scientists looked at caloric restriction and longevity, they "needed to decide whether life extension by caloric restriction is an artifact of mice in captivity,  (so) why not try it on wild mice?" 

Try it on wild mice?

How does one do that? Close the mouse 7/11, so it is no longer a 24/7? Put an incredibly well built, Madonnesque mouse in the midst of the chubbette mice, causing a flurry of crash diets so as to compete for the more desirable male mice? Open up a Jenny Craig with endorsements by Minnie Mouse?

The results of this wild vs. lab mice question, ultimately and predictably, were interpreted differently. Why? The reasons for wanting to be the first on your block with a new and improved drug are pretty clear. Maybe making $720 million dollars, which was the sum paid to a doctor and scientific entrepreneur to own the rights to Sirtris, a company that will explore the effects of how to activate sirtuins, would be a motivator to be the first on your block to identify a drug that promises something, anything, to staid off aging.

Sadly, the mice, who donated their bodies to science, calorically restricted or not, made not a dime. The upside, I suspect, is that for some of them, they looked YEARS younger then their actual mouse age, and after all, wasn't that a perk?