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Contramuffin@lemmy.world 1 day agoDon’t be comforted. Sacrificing mice is still extremely cruel and is the reason I specifically don’t work with mice.
Animal protocols require you to use 2 methods of killing to ensure the mouse is dead, and I’m assuming the decapitator is meant to be used as the second method to ensure death.
The first method of killing often involves gassing mice with CO2. This takes several minutes, and the mice definitely know that they’re getting gassed. After some time, they start panicking and scurry around the chamber looking for a way to escape. After a bit more time, they get weak and collapse. This is typically when you do the second method of killing. Some protocols require you to stab the heart with a needle and drain the blood. Some require you to snap their neck (like in the movies, except what the movies don’t show is that the mouse flails and twitches when you do it). Some require you to inject with ketamine (ok, this one isn’t so bad). And I guess now there’s a decapitator that lets you just cut the entire head off.
Even among researchers, there’s a pretty sizeable number of people who don’t want to work with mice
mic_check_one_two@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 day ago
Yeah, CO2 suffocation is a legitimately awful way to go out, because it feels like you’re suffocating the entire time. Basically, there isn’t an easy way for your body to detect how much oxygen you have. From a biological standpoint, there aren’t many good (or accurate) ways to measure oxygen saturation.
But CO2 is a different story. When CO2 is dissolved in water, it forms carbonic acid. This is the same acid that gives carbonated drinks their characteristic bitter bite; flat sodas taste overly sweet because there isn’t any acid balancing out the sugar. On a biological level, carbonic acid is really easy to detect.
So that’s what your body does. It detects carbonic acid in your blood. And when those levels rise, you feel like you’re suffocating. If you hold your breath, that urge to breathe isn’t caused by a lack of oxygen; It’s caused by a buildup of CO2. So if you gas someone with CO2, it instantly sends them into “I’m suffocating” mode. And they’ll stay there until they pass out from the lack of oxygen. But that entire time, they’ll feel like they’re suffocating, because their CO2 levels are continuing to rise.
A more humane method would be something like nitrogen. It still allows the CO2 to be expelled, so the feeling of suffocation never starts.