The Answer is 42? The Scary Mouse.

I have always found animal testing quite scary, probably because of all the pain they cause, for the benefit of the mankind. If the mankind gains any benefit out of new mascaras or shampoos, that's another story. But the really MOST scary tests are carried out by the gene technology guys. Check this out:

The mouse that shook the world

By Steve Connor, Science Editor
The Independent, 02 November 2007

The mouse can run up to six kilometres (3.7 miles) at a speed of 20 metres per minute for five hours or more without stopping. Scientists said that this was equivalent of a man cycling at speed up an Alpine mountain without a break.
Although it eats up to 60 per cent more food than an ordinary mouse, the modified mouse does not put on weight. It also lives longer and enjoys an active sex life well into old age – being capable of breeding at three times the normal maximum age.

American scientists who created the mice – they now have a breeding colony of 500 – said that they were stunned by their abilities, especially given that the animals came about as a result of a standard genetic modification to a single metabolism gene shared with humans.

*****

Please read the story as a whole in here.

And why would the answer be 42? If you need to ask me this, you have not read the Douglas Adams books, and that's a pity. Come on, go get them. Mice had an important role in the future – or the destruction – of the Earth.