Letters from the April 1, 2006, issue of Science News

The prion game

I must quibble about the headline of the piece about chronic wasting disease in deer (“Hunter Beware: Infectious proteins found in deer muscle,” SN: 1/28/06,

p. 52). “Hunter Beware” sounds ominous, but in order to get the mice to exhibit symptoms after getting muscle tissue from infected deer, it was necessary to use genetically engineered mice carrying deer protein.