I came to know mouse urine, the molecules of which are known as MUPs (Major Urinary Proteins), and specifically as Mus m 1, because the molecules were stubbornly clinging to the studs of a cabin that I recently bought. Though I didn’t yet know the molecular names or weights of my MUPs, I knew they were there. Mice had burrowed through the cabin’s fiberglass insulation, and it looked like a splendid and huge pink ant farm.

Mice sort their food; there were larders of pasta, lentils, acorns, and blue poison crystals in my walls. Looking at the elaborate networks in the walls, it’s easy to imagine that my new-old (built in 1939) cabin’s erstwhile owner was a rustic prisoner who suffered respiratory ailments. The mice operated a space-age metropolitan economy in the walls around him, communicating through sophisticated molecular signaling.

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