Dressed in a white robe, a female qi master calmly stands in a room. Her face a mask of concentration, she puts her hands into a metal box. She quietly waits for three minutes. Then concentrates for seven minutes.

Her hands rest on a black cloth. Under the cloth is a metal cup, in which there are two anesthetized mice.

The woman is a Japanese healer, trained in the qi healing technique in China. The mice are not pets -- they are experimental subjects being used in a research program at the National Institute of Radiological Sciences in Chiba.