In a genetically engineered experiment, Japanese scientists at the University of Osaka have created a mouse that tweets like a bird. After crossbreeding genetically altered mice for some time, to see what would happen, they apparently got their first interesting result, by mistake. Researcher Arikuni Uchimura said they were expecting physical mutations, but definitely not a tweeting mouse.

The “mistake” happened at the University of Osaka called “Evolved Mouse Project”, where scientists have the sole purpose of breeding mice ‘pron to miscopying DNA and thus to mutation”, without knowing for sure what will the end results may be.

While the first tweeting mouse may have been a mistake, the 100 more that followed certainly weren’t. While its unusual trait may be completely accidental, the original mouse transmitted it to all of its offsprings. Now they are all used to somehow understand the origins of human language. That’s going to take a while, but maybe they could get a tweeting mouse in a room with a predatory bird and see if it can talk its way out of becoming lunch.