It seems to happen almost every day - you hear about the results of a new medical research study. Sometimes the results of one study seem to disagree with the results of another study.

It's important to be critical when reading or listening to reports of new medical findings. Some questions that can help you evaluate health information include:

• Was the study in animals or people?
• Does the study include people like you?
• How big was the study?
• Was it a randomized controlled clinical trial?
• Where was the research done?
• If a new treatment was being tested, were there side effects?
• Who paid for the research?
• Who is reporting the results?

Have you ever wondered why science takes so long? Maybe you haven’t thought about it much. But waiting around to hear more about COVID-19 may have you frustrated with the process.

Science can be slow and unpredictable. Each research advance builds on past discoveries, often in unexpected ways. It can take many years to build up enough basic knowledge to apply what scientists learn to improve human health.

“You really can’t understand how a disease occurs if you don’t understand how the basic biological processes work in the first place,” says Dr. Jon Lorsch, director of NIH’s National Institute of General Medical Sciences. “And of course, if you don’t understand how the underlying processes work, you don’t have any hope of actually fixing them and curing those diseases.”

Basic research asks fundamental questions about how life works. Scientists study cells, genes, proteins, and other building blocks of life. What they find can lead to better ways to predict, prevent, diagnose, and treat disease.

How Basic Research Works

When scientists are interested in a topic, they first read previous studies to find out what’s known. This lets them figure out what questions still need to be asked.

Using what they learn, scientists design new experiments to answer important unresolved questions. They collect and analyze data, and evaluate what the findings might mean.

The type of experiment depends on the question and the field of science. A lot of what we know about basic biology so far has come from studying organisms other than people.

“If one wants to delve into the intricate details of how cells work or how the molecules inside the cells work together to make processes happen, it can be very difficult to study them in humans,” Lorsch explains. “But you can study them in a less complicated life form.”

These are called research organisms. The basic biology of these organisms can be similar to ours, and much is already known about their genetic makeup. They can include yeast, fruit flies, worms, zebrafish, and mice.

Computers can also help answer basic science questions. “You can use computers to look for patterns and to try to understand how the different data you’ve collected can fit together,” Lorsch says.

But computer models have limits. They often rely on what’s already known about a process or disease. So it’s important that the models include the most up-to-date information. Scientists usually have more confidence in predictions when different computer models come up with similar answers.

This is true for other types of studies, too. One study usually only uncovers a piece of a much larger puzzle. It takes a lot of data from many different scientists to start piecing the puzzle together.

Building Together

Science is a collective effort. Researchers often work together and communicate with each other regularly. They chat with other scientists about their work, both in their lab and beyond. They present their findings at national and international conferences. Networking with their peers lets them get feedback from other experts while doing their research.

Once they’ve collected enough evidence to support their idea, researchers go through a more formal peer-review process. They write a paper summarizing their study and try to get it published in a scientific journal. After they submit their study to a journal, editors review it and decide whether to send it to other scientists for peer review.

“Peer review keeps us all informed of each other’s work, makes sure we’re staying on the cutting-edge with our techniques, and maintains a level of integrity and honesty in science,” says Dr. Windy Boyd, a senior science editor who oversees the peer-review process at NIH’s scientific journal of environmental health research and news.

Different experts evaluate the quality of the research. They look at the methods and how the results were gathered.

“Peer reviewers can all be looking at slightly different parts of the work,” Boyd explains. “One reviewer might be an expert in one specific method, where another reviewer might be more of an expert in the type of study design, and someone else might be more focused on the disease itself.”

Peer reviewers may see problems with the experiments or think different experiments are needed. They might offer new ways to interpret the data. They can also reject the paper because of poor quality, a lack of new information, or other reasons. But if the research passes this peer review process, the study is published.

Just because a study is published doesn’t mean its interpretation of the data is “right.” Other studies may support a different hypothesis.

Scientists work to develop different explanations, or models, for the various findings. They usually favor the model that can explain the most data that’s available.

“At some point, the weight of the evidence from different research groups points strongly to an answer being the most likely,” Lorsch explains. “You should be able to use that model to make predictions that are testable, which further strengthens the likelihood that that answer is the correct one.”

An Ever-Changing Process

Science is always a work in progress. It takes many studies to figure out the “most accurate” model—which doesn’t mean the “right” model.

It’s a self-correcting process. Sometimes experiments can give different results when they’re repeated. Other times, when the results are combined with later studies, the current model no longer can explain all the data and needs to be updated.

“Science is constantly evolving; new tools are being discovered,” Boyd says. “So our understanding can also change over time as we use these different tools.”

Science looks at a question from many different angles with many different techniques. Stories you may see or read about a new study may not explain how it fits into the bigger picture.

“It can seem like, at times, studies contradict each other,” Boyd explains. “But the studies could have different designs and often ask different questions.”

The details of how studies are different aren’t always explained in stories in the media. Only over time does enough evidence accumulate to point toward an explanation of all the different findings on a topic.

“The storybook version of science is that the scientist is doing something, and there’s this eureka moment where everything is revealed,” Lorsch says. “But that’s really not how it happens. Everything is done one increment at a time.”

Research in the News

When you read or hear about a new study, ask:

• What question is the study trying to answer?
• How do the findings fit in with previous studies on the topic?
• Has the study been peer reviewed?
• Are there other studies that have confirmed the idea, or is it new and untested?
• Was the study done in people or a research organism?
• Who do the findings apply to? Was the study done in certain groups of people?
• What questions still need to be answered?

Have you ever wondered what it means to “follow the science?” Sometimes it may seem like what’s true one day changes the next. But when what we know changes, it often means science is working.

Research helps us understand the world through careful testing. Each advance builds on past discoveries. This process can take a long time. But the end result is a better understanding of the world around us.

In general, the scientific process follows many steps. First, scientists start with a question. They look at past research to see what others have learned. Different scientists have diverse skills and training. They each bring their own approaches and ideas. And they design new experiments to test their ideas.

Next, scientists perform their experiments and collect data. Then, they evaluate what their findings might mean. This often leads them to new questions and ideas to test.

The next step is to share their data and ideas with other scientists. Other experts can give new perspectives or point out problems.

It’s natural to want answers. But it’s important not to draw conclusions based on a single study. Scientists start to form conclusions only after looking at many studies over time. Sometimes, even these conclusions change with more evidence. Science is an evolving process. But it’s the best way we have to seek out answers.

What is clinical research?

Clinical research is research conducted with human subjects, or material of human origin, in which the researcher directly interacts with human subjects. Clinical research helps doctors and researchers to find new and better ways to understand, detect, control, and treat illness. A clinical research study is a way to find answers to difficult scientific or health questions. For example, the study might explore the best ways to treat people with colon cancer. By studying cancer cells from patients, researchers may be able to determine the specific genetic mutations (changes in gene sequence) that caused the normal, healthy cells to become cancerous, and may help doctors decide on the best drugs to prescribe or surgeries to perform. Clinical research today may help other doctors in the future screen their healthy patients before they ever develop cancer.

What is a protocol?

All clinical studies are based on a set of rules or directions called a protocol. A protocol describes what types of people are eligible to participate in the study; determines the schedule of tests, procedures, medications, and dosages; and sets the length of the study.

What is a clinical trial?

A clinical trial is a research study in which one or more human subjects are prospectively assigned to one or more interventions (which may include placebo or other control) to evaluate the effects of those interventions on health-related biomedical or behavioral outcomes.

What are clinical trial "phases?"

Clinical trials of experimental drugs proceed through four phases:

In Phase I clinical trials, researchers test a new drug or treatment for the first time in a small group of normal, healthy volunteers (about 20 to 80) to evaluate its safety, determine a safe dosage range, and identify side effects.

In Phase II clinical trials, the study drug or treatment is given to a larger group of people (about 100 to 300), including patients with the particular disease, to see if the drug or treatment is effective, and to further evaluate its safety.

In Phase III clinical trials, the study drug or treatment is given to large groups of people (from 1,000 to 3,000), including patients, to confirm its effectiveness, monitor side effects, compare it to other commonly used treatments, and collect information that will allow the drug or treatment to be used safely.

Phase IV clinical trials are done after the drug or treatment has been approved by the FDA and marketed for public use. These studies continue testing the drug or treatment to collect information about its effect in various populations and gather data on any side effects associated with long-term use.

What are "blind" or "masked" studies?

In many clinical trials, one group of patients will be given an experimental drug or treatment, while a control group is given either a standard treatment for the illness, or a placebo (a harmless "fake" drug), or no treatment at all.

In a "blinded" or "masked" study, participants do not know whether they are getting the drug being tested, or whether they are in the control group. The goal is to prevent the so-called "placebo effect" from influencing the results of the experiment. The placebo effect is the phenomenon of patients feeling better simply because they think they are receiving a helpful drug or treatment.

Sometimes, clinical trials are "double-blind" or "double-masked." That means that neither the participants, nor the study staff members, know who is receiving the experimental drug and who is in the control group. Studies are performed in this way so that neither the patients' nor the doctors' expectations about the experimental drug can influence the observations and results.

Should I volunteer for clinical research?

Clinical research is a vital part of finding new treatments and cures for diseases. Carefully conducted clinical studies are the fastest way to find treatments that are safe and effective. By volunteering for a clinical study, you would be participating in research that may result in a new treatment for a deadly or debilitating disease.

Before you agree to participate in a study, you must be given complete information about the study, known as "informed consent." Informed consent involves two essential components: a document and a process. The informed consent document gives a summary of the research project (including the study's purpose, research procedures, potential benefits and risks, etc.) and explains the individual's rights as a research participant. This document is part of an informed consent process, which consists of conversations between the research team and the participant, and may include other supporting material such as study brochures. The informed consent process provides research participants with ongoing explanations that will help them make informed decisions about whether to begin or continue participating in the research project.

Because participating in a clinical study is an important decision, there are many questions that you should consider before agreeing to participate.

What is a research organism?

A research organism can be any creature that scientists use to study life. Examples range from single-celled organisms such as bacteria to more complex ones such as mice. Researchers funded by NIGMS use research organisms to explore the basic biology and chemistry of life.

Scientists decide which organism to study based on their research questions. Worms and zebrafish, which can regrow missing or injured body parts, are used to learn how cells and tissues regenerate. Insects such as fruit flies and honeybees are important research organisms for learning how genes and the environment interact to affect behavior. Sea urchins are able to reproduce and regrow body parts throughout their lives, making them of interest to scientists who study aging.

Scientists can study animals in ways that they cannot study people. For example, animal studies conducted in the lab allow scientists to control temperature, humidity, light, diet, and other factors that might affect the outcome of the experiments. These rigorous controls allow for more precise understanding of the biological factors being studied and provide greater certainty about experimental outcomes when pursuing additional studies.

What are model organisms?

Model organisms are a small group of research organisms that serve as a proxy for understanding the biology of humans. Examples include yeast, fruit flies, worms, zebrafish, and mice. Many aspects of these organisms’ biology are similar to ours, and much is already known about their genetic makeup. For these and other reasons, studying model organisms helps scientists learn more about human health.

Why are model organisms useful for studying diseases?

The natural course of a disease in humans may take dozens of years. In contrast, a model organism can quickly develop a disease or some of its symptoms. That allows researchers to learn about the disease in a much shorter time.

When scientists discover a link between a particular gene and a human disease, they typically find out what that gene does in a model organism. This information can provide important clues about what causes a disease. It also can help researchers develop potential diagnostic tests and treatments that are later tested in clinical trials. Mice, for example, have served as a model for studying the genetics of Down syndrome, cystic fibrosis, heart disease, and cancer.

Any NIH-funded study that involves animals or humans must follow laws, regulations, and policies to ensure participants’ welfare and minimize risks stemming from the research.

How has work with research organisms influenced human health?

Much of what we know about biology comes from studies using model and other research organisms. In addition to advancing knowledge of our own biology, these studies have led to the development of new tools doctors can use to diagnose and treat disease. Here are a few of the many examples from NIGMS-funded research:

• Yeast studies sorted out how cells divide. They revealed the orderly sequence of events that cells use to duplicate their contents and multiply, a process called the cell cycle. Millions of people with cancer have benefitted from this information, because many cancer drugs interfere with the cell cycle.
• Yeast studies clarified how genes are turned on or off and informed our understanding of diseases that occur when genes are active at the wrong time or in the wrong cell.
• Studies in fruit flies and tiny worms taught scientists new things about how fertilized eggs develop into complex organisms.
• Research with bacteria, viruses, and yeast revealed how all living things pass on their genes to offspring. This work detailed the ways cells copy DNA and repair mistakes made during the copying process.
• Researchers have used laboratory mice and rats for decades to test drugs. Basic research with rats also has taught us much of what we know about cancer-causing molecules.
• Studies with fruit flies, bread mold, bacteria, and mice identified the basic components of circadian clocks, which drive daily biological rhythms. The research revealed connections between these clocks and sleep deprivation, obesity, diabetes, depression, and other human health conditions.
• Studies using research organisms produced powerful tools that scientists use in human health studies worldwide. Examples include DNA chips for studying all the gene activity in a cell and the CRISPR tool for editing DNA in living organisms.

What more can research organisms tell us?

Scientists continue to work toward understanding all of the molecular processes that underpin human biology and health. They are currently using research organisms to see how these animals fix damaged pieces of DNA, regenerate missing or injured body parts, and pass certain genetic changes to their offspring.

Studying research organisms can also help reveal molecular changes that are associated with diseases and show the connections between certain diseases that seem unrelated.

How are computer models used?

Computers can serve as virtual laboratories that advance biomedical knowledge in areas such as infectious disease spread and drug interactions in the body. With virtual labs, scientists can perform experiments that are difficult to do in actual labs. They also can quickly identify factors that are important to include in lab-based experiments. Researchers use computer simulations to track biological processes in cells and research organisms. This allows them to computationally test, for example, the possible effects of drugs on those processes. The drugs that seem the most promising can then be studied in living cells or organisms.

Because the computer models are so complex, researchers need to use high-performance computers. Often, these computers run for weeks at a time, generating millions of different possible outcomes.

No single set of results or single computer model can accurately predict an outcome. Therefore, researchers often ask the same questions using different models. When multiple models yield similar results, scientists have more confidence in the predictions.

Can computer models replace research organisms?

Computer models have limits. Researchers create them based on what they already know about a process or disease. Scientists use information and data gained from real-world experiments to enhance computer models and predictions to help design additional experiments. Thus, computer modeling and lab experiments go hand in hand—both are needed to advance our understanding of health.

Although the origin of the mouse and human has been the subject of recent debate, it is thought that the mouse lineage diverged from the human somewhere around 75 million years ago.

The origin of the mouse as the principal model system for biomedical research dates back to the start of human civilization. Humans have been recording observations regarding coat-color mutations for millennia, including ancient Chinese references to albino, yellow and waltzing mice.

By the 1700s, many varieties of mice were domesticated as pets in China and Japan, and Europeans imported favorites and bred them to local mice. This breeding led to the creation of progenitors of modern laboratory mice as hybrids among M. m. domesticus, M. m. musculus and other subspecies.

In Victorian England, "fancy" mice were prized and traded, and a National Mouse Club was founded in 1895.

In 1900, with the rediscovery of Mendel's laws of inheritance, it was quickly recognized that the discontinuous variation of fancy mice was analogous to that of Mendel's peas, and mice were used to test the new theories of inheritance. Mating programs were established to create inbred strains that resulted in many of the modern, well-known strains used in medical research.

Haldane's report in 1915 led to genetic mapping in the mouse, and the genetic map grew slowly over the next 50 years. By the early 1980s, the genome began to fill out, with chromosome 7 mapping 45 loci.

The greatest breakthrough in the mapping of the mouse was the development of recombinant DNA technology and the advent of DNA-sequence based polymorphisms. These techniques readily revealed polymorphisms between laboratory strains.

When the Human Genome Project was launched in 1990, it included the mouse as one of its five central model organisms and targeted the creation of genetic, physical and sequence maps of the mouse genome. Genetic and physical maps provided thousands of anchor points that could be used to tie clones or DNA sequences to specific locations in the mouse genome.

What is the exposome?

Success in mapping the human genome has fostered the complementary concept of the “exposome”. The exposome can be defined as the measure of all the exposures of an individual in a lifetime and how those exposures relate to health. An individual’s exposure begins before birth and includes insults from environmental and occupational sources. Understanding how exposures from our environment, diet, lifestyle, etc. interact with our own unique characteristics such as genetics, physiology, and epigenetics impact our health is how the exposome will be articulated.

Exposomics is the study of the exposome and relies on the application of internal and external exposure assessment methods. Internal exposure relies on fields of study such as genomics, metabonomics, lipidomics, transcriptomics and proteomics. Commonalities of these fields include 1) use of biomarkers to determine exposure, effect of exposure, disease progression, and susceptibility factors, 2) use of technologies that result in large amounts of data and 3) use of data mining techniques to find statistical associations between exposures, effect of exposures, and other factors such as genetics with disease. External exposure assessment relies on measuring environmental stressors. Common approaches include using direct reading instruments, laboratory-based analysis, and survey instruments. The extent to which internal and external exposure assessment will contribute to our understanding of the exposome is being debated as each approach has certain merits.

A key factor in describing the exposome is the ability to accurately measure exposures and effect of exposures. Many of the “omics” technologies have the potential to further our understanding of disease causation and progression. Metabonomics and adductomics (DNA and protein adduct measurement) have been used in the past to establish exposure-disease relationships. Research is needed to determine the utility of the “omics” technologies in defining the exposome.

Recently, some thought leaders in the exposome have pushed to narrow the focus to include only the study of metabonomics. Many of these small molecular weight compounds act as signals to regulate biological systems. They show promise in deciphering disease mechanisms. While metabonomics has great potential to contribute to the study of the exposome, it has not been established that it is the only approach needed to clearly articulate the important aspects of the exposome.

Why should we study the exposome?

One of the promises of the human genome project was that it could revolutionize our understanding of the underlying causes of disease and aid in the development of preventions and cures for more diseases. Unfortunately, genetics has been found to account for only about 10% of diseases, and the remaining causes appear to be from environmental causes. So to understand the causes and eventually the prevention of disease, environmental causes need to be studied.

What are the challenges of advancing exposomics?

Some obvious challenges that may limit the progress in this field of study are evident. An individual’s exposome is highly variable and dynamic throughout their lifetime. The impact of exposures can also vary with the individual’s stage of life. For examples, exposure to the drug thalidomide during specific developmental periods in utero causes malformation of limbs; exposure to lead in infants and early childhood can lead to cognitive deficiencies. Exposures during early years may also predispose an individual to certain chronic diseases later in life. NIOSH has a unique opportunity to contribute occupational exposure information to this emerging field.

The impact of environmental or occupational exposures can be different for each individual because of differences in genetic and other personal factors. Some people will develop a disease while another person with the same or greater exposure will not. The exposome may help to determine the underlying causes for this difference. Mapping an entire exposome for an individual will be difficult, if not impossible because of the complexity of a life-time of exposure. Specific exposures can be difficult to measure due to lack of sensitive methods or not knowing that an exposure has even occurred. Even when the exposure is known, measuring that exposure can be difficult since the indicators of exposure may be transient, such as for most chemicals, which are rapidly excreted and only a short time frame exists to directly measure them. In other cases, past exposure can be defined using legacy biomarkers. A common example of a legacy biomarker is antibodies produced by exposures to environmental or occupational insults.

The experience in studying genetic involvement in diseases serves as a model for studying the relationship between exposures and disease. In the past, hypotheses of the role of specific genes in disease were tested. Currently, genome-wide association studies (GWAS) are performed with the aid of new technologies which produce cheaper and faster analyses to generate hypotheses about the relationship between genes and disease. These studies identify gene pathways associated with disease, and, when an association has been identified specific hypotheses about the role of specific genes in disease can be generated and tested. An approach to the exposome is to use internal biological media and measure multiple endpoints. The data would be analyzed to identify associations between health outcomes and biomarkers of exposures, biomarkers of response, or patterns of biomarkers (exposure-wide association studies [EWAS]).

One important aspect of the exposome will be adherence to strict ethical principles as the exposome is deciphered. This will be paramount to ensure that the rights of individuals are not compromised when determining exposures and the relationship to their health.

I am not a fish, but I dive deep into streams and ponds, using my bill to poke around for delicious crustaceans and aquatic insects…

I am not a groundhog or a gopher, but I breathe air and dig burrows where I hide most of the day…

I am not a lizard or a snake, but I lay eggs and my mate can squirt venom…

I am furry and make nutritious milk to feed my young…

What am I?

18th-century stories of the strange appearance and behavior of this mystery creature, now known as the duck-billed platypus, left naturalists mystified as to what could fit its seemingly catch-all characteristics. We now know that the platypus is a monotreme, an ancient type of mammal that lays eggs.

Hundreds of years after the first sightings of the platypus, the animal still captures our imagination anew and irresistibly attracts the attention of science writers everywhere. The May 2008 Nature report detailing the DNA insides of the duck-billed platypus invited colorful tales from just about every mainstream media outlet.

But cuteness and weirdness aside, the platypus research results are a gold mine for medical researchers. The findings cement what may have seemed totally obvious but turned out to be a bit of a scientific surprise: platypus DNA is a patchwork of genes from reptiles, birds, and mammals.

Evolution Fusion

In other words, the platypus heritage is laid out in an evolutionary DNA tapestry that marks the time, hundreds of millions of years ago, when reptiles and mammals branched off the evolutionary tree.

So what? The platypus is nothing like a human, so what can its DNA tell us about people and the diseases we get?

Plenty, say an international team of scientists who did this work.

The platypus genome results are far more than confirmation of a scientific oddity. They provide researchers a window into a time in history when mammals became unique — gaining the ability to bear live young, produce milk for them, and grow a warm, furry coat.

That’s important because our own, modern-day genomes are still a big mystery and researchers need much more information to be able to translate our genetic language into useful health knowledge.

One of the ways scientists can decipher meaning from within our 3 billion DNA “letters,” or nucleotides, is to compare human genes with those from animals, to see what has been kept the same and what has evolved to be different.

For example, these types of studies in chimps, our closest living relative, have shed light on why humans get AIDS and other immune disorders, and how the human brain has developed its considerable complexity.

Same and Different

In an approach called comparative genomics, scientists compare the genome sequences of several species: human, mouse, and a wide variety of other organisms from single-celled fungi to elephants and, now, the platypus.

The goal of this research is to find regions of similarity and difference in order to better understand the structure and function of human genes.

Comparative genomics is directly related to evolution because all living things share a common ancestor. By using computer tools to examine genes that have been kept the same in many organisms over millions of years, researchers can locate signals that control how genes work. This information may translate into ways to understand, treat, and prevent human diseases.

Australian scientists got platypus DNA from a female named Glennie, from the Glenrock Station region of New South Wales. Her DNA could be easily obtained from a drop of blood or from a snipping of fur.

As the tools for sequencing DNA get easier and cheaper, comparative genomics techniques will likely become increasingly useful for agriculture, biotechnology … and for animals like Glennie. Comparing genomes of similar species may point to new strategies for conserving rare and endangered species of animals. Study of the genomes of species such as cows and chickens may also help to enhance nutrient quality of the food supply.

Chicken or Egg?

When researchers analyzed platypus DNA and compared it to that of chickens, snakes, and lizards, the findings traced the evolutionary path from birds and reptiles to mammals. They learned that the platypus lost most of its genetic ability to produce egg yolk—as compared to chicken genes. This suggests its departure from “chicken-ness.”

But, through evolutionary change, the platypus gained the ability to make milk that is rich in nutrients. Platypus have genes that make the milk protein casein: just like we do.

A male platypus can, like its ancestral snake and lizard cousins, produce venom. The platypus ejects this venom through special glands in its back legs. The evolutionary reason for maintaining such molecular weaponry isn’t yet clear, but what is fascinating is that it appears nature mixed and matched together DNA pieces separately to create the venom genes in reptiles and monotremes like the platypus.

The scientific value of pinning genetics to physiological function — like milk production—is high. Such investigations may help medical researchers understand health issues related to reproduction and lactation. Although lactation is an ancient reproductive trait, mammals — including the platypus — are unique in their ability to produce milk that is extraordinarily nutritious, containing a rich blend of sugars, fats, and proteins.

More generally, though, studying how nature cuts and pastes gene modules gives scientists an inside scoop on how genetic changes relate to health and disease risk.

One thing is clear—the stunning blend of reptile, bird, and mammal puts the platypus in a class of its own, and it gives researchers much more: information about how mammals like us came about.

The genetic sleuthing of platypus, chimps, fish, sunflowers — you name it — continues to teach scientists how millions of years of evolution progressed. This provides vital information to understanding the role of genes in the health and disease of mammals like us and our pets, and can also help preserve our rich and diverse planet.

This research was a team effort funded by the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, the UK Medical Research Council, the Ministry of Science (Spain), the State of Louisiana Board or Regents, the Australian Research Council, and the W.V. Scott Foundation. Thanks to the Queensland Museum, Macquarie Generation, and Glenrock station for platypus samples and DNA collection.

This is a list of some common abbreviations and acronyms.

General Words

Body Parts and Disorders

Positions and Directions

Numbers and Amounts

Color

Physical Properties and Shapes

Good and Bad

Procedures, Diagnosis and Surgery