A VACUUM cleaner may have revealed genes linked to epilepsy.
Ueli Schibler’s team at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, set out to study the circadian genes that control our body clock. The team found there was a high death rate among mice lacking three key circadian genes. But what was killing them off? The researchers noticed most died on days when the lab was cleaned. Once they had made the connection, they soon worked out that the loud noise made by the vacuum cleaner was triggering epileptic fits in the mice.
Subsequent investigations revealed that the loss of all three…
