CHICAGO—In an effort to study the rodents’ ability to manipulate simple magical objects, researchers at the University of Chicago reportedly released a teeny little minotaur into a maze Thursday to test mice’s capacity to use enchanted string. “Our thesis is that by adding the external pressure of a teensy tiny monstrosity into their environment, the mice will be motivated to use the charmed thread to find their way to the exit,” said lead researcher Christa Manginis, explaining that preliminary testing had indicated that at least one of the seven male and seven female mice trapped within should be able to use the string to lead the others to safety or potentially even employ one of the toothpick-sized swords placed throughout the maze to slay the minuscule human-bull hybrid. “If these trials are successful, they could potentially have far-reaching implications for humans’ ability to use more sophisticated godly instruments such as golden fleeces or caps of invisibility to evade ravening beasts.” Manginis added that this experiment had been developed as an offshoot of her past research which had definitively concluded that female rodents could be successfully trained to open a wee jar containing all the evils of mousekind.

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