I really should know better than to be surprised at the findings - and techniques – of science, but this is pretty cool. The 17 October edition of Nature Neuroscience published a paper detailing experiments in optogenetics. The researchers incorporated light-reactive proteins into the olfactory systems of mice, so that the systems are triggered by light rather than smell.

Basically they have genetically engineered the mice so their noses act like retina.

Now, the idea of mice being able to smell light is interesting (although perhaps not as fantastic as mice that can see odours), but of course that’s not the point of the research. More . . .