lab rat

lab rat

Someone who agrees to let others use them as a test subject. A: "Did he really sign up to be a lab rat for some skincare company?" B: "Yeah, because they promised him a bunch of free products to try!" I can't believe I agreed to be my sister's lab rat—now I have to let her practice cutting hair on me.
See also: rat
Farlex Dictionary of Idioms.
See also:
  • sewer rat
  • sing
  • sung
  • like a drowned rat
  • keep (one's) socks on
  • bawangos
  • sack rat
  • worry (something) out of (someone or something)
  • worry out of
  • strictly speaking
References in periodicals archive
Daily rhythms in the activity of ORX-A neurons were reported in a study with lab rats showing that Fos expression in these neurons peak at night (Estabrooke et al., 2001).
Fair warning: you may need an extra set of hands around while you're reading "Lab Rats." You'll need them to help pick your jaw up off the floor.
For the purpose of their study, the researchers used electrodes placed near the dendrites of the lab rats' neurons to measure electrical activity for up to four days as the animals were allowed to move freely within a large maze.
Lab rats bred to drink a lot or hardly at all have revealed 930 genes linked to a preference for alcohol, a recent study shows.
It showed that in lab rats eating junk food caused harmful changes similar to those associated with Type 2 diabetes.
Using a team of human lab rats and a troop of Barbary monkeys, Michael and Alice test the science and challenge old stereotypes.
Groups covered in nine papers include agnaths (sea lamprey), general tetrapods, bats, lab rats, rabbits, domestic pigs, and cattle.
It claims "lab rats have more professional privacy" than teachers, who could now take industrial action over the non-stop surveillance.
Using lab rats on a circular track, James Knierim, professor of neuroscience in the Zanvyl Krieger Mind/Brain Institute at Johns Hopkins, and a team of brain scientists noticed that the rats frequently paused to inspect their environment with head movements as they ran.
To test the ear's performance when hooked up to a blood supply, researchers implanted it onto the backs of lab rats. They were pleased with the results.
Since 1934, research has shown that lab rats, mice, fruit flies and round worms fed 10 per cent to 40 per cent fewer calories than their free-eating peers lived some 30 per cent longer -- some even twice as long.
He is accused of trying to get revenge for his firing by switching the IDs of lab rats so as to ruin all the research being done there.
In this study using lab rats, researchers looked at the effects of canola oil on colon cancer prevention and found that the oil not only inhibited the average number of tumors per rat by 58 percent, compared to control diets in the experiment, but also the size of the tumors by 90 percent.
For the love of lab rats; kinship, humanimal relations, and good scientific research.
ISTANBUL, Feb 17, 2011 (TUR) -- A Turkish molecular biologist has said his research had shown that facilitating the production of a protein called XBP1 could lower blood sugar back to normal in lab rats both with Type 2 and Type 1 diabetes.