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U.S. wants to restart lab testing of chimps as science cools to it

ALAMOGORDO, N.M. – During Lennie?s life under the microscope, science changed.

….Researchers say advances in laboratory techniques mean that knowledge once gained only by examining a live animal now can be learned in a petri dish. And an expanding body of evidence shows that chimps don’t work as the human fill-in that researchers once hoped they would.

The ethics of animal research also have evolved. What once was commonplace is now controversial, and there’s a growing feeling that chimps should be spared the physical and mental pain of research.