Check out Karen Weintraub’s story in the Globe on how rats are replacing mice as research models.

Also, the New Bedford paper is reporting that reporting that UMass Dartmouth is rethinking plans for a biotech manufacturing plant that was designed to anchor a Fall River research park.

From The Standard Times:

The $22 million facility was originally planned as the anchor tenant in the 300-acre proposed BioPark in Fall River.

However, the location of the facility was thrown into question earlier this year after the Fall River Redevelopment Authority agreed in principle to sell the original site to the Mashpee Wampanoag for development as a resort casino.

The project was supposed to make the struggling region area a bigger player in the state’s effort ot promote life sciences.

The Tauton Daily Gazette offers more details about the lawsuit, casino and alternate sites complicating the project.

The university, which had planned to build off Route 24 in the north end of Fall River, considered other locations in the area after the city began looking into the potential for a resort casino on the site. University officials have not commented on the court battle over the land and what it could mean for its planned biomanufacturing facility, which was to anchor a biotechnology park.

For more on what IS happening in that region, see the site forThe Advanced Technology and Manufacturing Center.