Mighty Mice.

It seems like only yesterday that I sat staring, incredulous, at surreal photographs of the Vacanti mouse running around with a human ear atop its fluffy little back, wondering if it meant it could now understand human-speak. After all, Pinky and the Brain could.

Well now, once again, mice have made their little mark. Last week, national newspapers announced that scientist Professor Richard Hanson and his team at Case Western Reserve University, Ohio, have created a bionic mouse, a real-life Speedy Gonzales. The supermouse, particularly the female one, can sprint for a staggering three miles and up to six hours before it needs a cat nap or a blister plaster. The mouse, whose stage name is PEPCK-Cmus, also lives up to a year longer (light years in micey terms) guzzles 60% more fodder but doesn’t gain any weight. Evil little tyke.

But then he does put Paula Radcliffe to shame on the exercise front, so I’ll let it off. Apparently, the pesky varmint is also full of rage and is sexually active far longer than your regular Mickey Mouse.

Now correct me if I’m wrong, but some of these traits seem rather appealing, do they not? Imagine if they were pumped into humans. Obesity would be a distant nightmare and the planet would be populated with super-skinny females and super-stacked males who wouldn’t be able to keep their hands off one another.

And then last week, a new Mighty Mouse was born, Delta D. A mouse who is no longer afraid of the Toms and Sylvesters of this world. Amazing. But I don’t quite understand how this is possibly a good thing. The pest no longer associates the smell of a prowling puss with the smell of fear. As a result, the real-life Danger Mouse will casually stroll up to a foe of the feline variety, nuzzle up for a cuddle and promptly get its head bitten off.

Hitoshi Sakano, the mastermind from the University of Tokyo who led this game of cat and mouse, has praised his fascinating findings. He claims that it was possible to override the innate aversion that all mammals – including humans – have to certain smells, including aversive behaviours to spoiled foods. Fantastic. I’m sure that environmentalists and Waste Management will be over the moon at the prospect of families cheerily dishing up rotting vegetables followed by Stuart Little’s staple snack of cheese which crawls off your plate.

But don't rush to form an orderly queue on the other side of the world. Sadly none of these traits are to be used directly as performance-enhancers for humans. The powers-that-be have decided that it would be “unethical and inappropriate.” Well, it would definitely be rather ridiculous if the human fear factor was eliminated, that’s for sure. Kids would no longer be afraid of the Bogey Man, teenagers of their reflection and adults of the tax man. Then again, maybe that’s not such a bad idea after all.