Leashing the Rattlesnake

A behind-the-scenes look at experimental design

Depending on how you look at them, snakes have no neck or nothing but neck, and either way, Ron Swaisgood had a problem. To finish his Ph.D. at the University of California, Davis he had to figure out how to put a rattlesnake on a leash. Obviously, dropping a slipknot around the snake’s neck wouldn’t do.