-
-
Rat meat rises in popularity as inflation hits locals
Many Cambodians already believed rat meat to be a great source of protein and a tasty little snack when gathered together drinking, but the popularity of the meat really began to increase when beef hit around $10 a pound. Many Cambodians already believed rat meat to be a great source of protein and a tasty little snack when gathered together drinking, bu... more
-
Rats who sniff out landmines get £500,000
It's a good trick, you train a rat to scratch the surface of the ground where it smells a landmine, thus enabling you to send in someone to neutralise it. Such a good trick infact, that Belgian charity Apopo has won a three-year Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship to develop its initiative.
The rats are well suited to the job, since they are less prone to disease and can be easily transported into the danger zone. Using their unique "HeroRAT" technology, the rats are trained and ready for action in as little as a year. It's a good trick, you train a rat to scratch the surface of the ground where it smells a landmine, thus enabling you to send in ... more -
Rat meat in demand in Cambodia as inflation bites
The price of rat meat has quadrupled in Cambodia this year as inflation has put other meat beyond the reach of poor people, officials said on Wednesday.
With consumer price inflation at 37 percent according to the latest central bank estimate, demand has pushed a kilogram of rat meat up to around 5,000 riel (69 pence) from 1,200 riel last year.
Spicy field rat dishes with garlic thrown in have become particularly popular at a time when beef costs 20,000 riel a kg.
Officials said rats were fleeing to higher ground from flooded areas of the lower Mekong Delta, making it easier for villagers to catch them.
"Many children are happy making some money from selling the animals to the markets, but they keep some for their family," Ly Marong, an agriculture official, said by telephone from the Koh Thom district on the border with Vietnam.
"Not only are our poor eating it, but there is also demand from Vietnamese living on the border with us."
He estimated that Cambodia supplied more than a tonne of live rats a day to Vietnam.
Rats are also eaten widely in Thailand, while a state government in eastern India this month encouraged its people to eat. The price of rat meat has quadrupled in Cambodia this year as inflation has put other meat beyond the reach of poor people, officials ... more -
Cambodians eat rats to beat global food crisis
Spicy field rat dishes with garlic increasingly seen on menus as boom in sales increases rodent prices four-fold
-
RatMobile: The World's First Cyborg?
It looks like Optimus Prime's pet- a simple, two-wheeled robot with a row of bright blue sensors beaming from the front as it freeches its way across the floor, bumping into chairs and walls. And even though this tinybot can't transform into a bite-sized ass-kicking machine, it may change the way we look at life itself. The core of this robot isn't an Intel chip or a radio antenna-- it's a laboratory rat's brain.
Redding University's Professor of cybernetics Kevin Warrick developed this roomba-rat, and he says it's a great leap forward in bridging the gap between man and machine.
"We actually have a biological brain controlling a robot- no computer, no human, just the biological brain itself," he said.
As you can see from the Reuters video, there's definitely more to this little robot than meets the eye. What do you think? Should we be meddling in the fusion of the biological and the mechanical? What device would you like connected to your body? It looks like Optimus Prime's pet- a simple, two-wheeled robot with a row of bright blue sensors beaming from the front as it fre... more -
India's poor urged to eat rats
An official in the Indian state of Bihar has come up with a new idea to encourage low caste poor people to cope with food shortages - rat meat.
The Principal Secretary of the state's Welfare Department, Vijay Prakash, said that he was advancing his proposal after "much survey and ground work". Bihar's extremely poor Musahar community are rat-eaters by tradition. The Musahar are on the bottom strata of the caste system with the lowest literacy rate and per capita income. Less than one percent of their 2.3 million population in Bihar is literate and 98% are landless.
Mr Prakash says his proposals to popularise rat meat eating are intended to uplift their social-economic condition. "There are twin advantages of this proposal. First, we can save about half of our food grain stocks by catching and eating rats and secondly we can improve the economic condition of the Musahar community," he told the BBC. According to Mr Prakash, about 50% of total food grain stocks in the country are eaten away by rodents. He argues that by promoting rat eating more grain will be preserved while hunger among the Musahar community will be reduced.
He said that rat meat is not only a delicacy but a protein-enriched food, widely popular in Thailand and France. "Rats have almost no bones and are quite rich in nutrition. People at large don't know this cuisine fact but gradually they are catching up."
(continued at link) An official in the Indian state of Bihar has come up with a new idea to encourage low caste poor people to cope with food shortages - ... more -
A Rat's Tale
A short documentary about a group of people in Northern California that love rats!
-
Reading scientists create robot with biological brain
Scientists at the University of Reading have created a robot with a biological brain that is capable of steering around objects without any input from humans or computers.
The robot's brain contains rat brain cells which are now being taught to learn the appearance of objects they have seen before.
This would enable researchers to study the formation of memories and gain insights into diseases such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's.
Professor Kevin Warwick from the university's School of Systems Engineering said: 'This new research is tremendously exciting as firstly the biological brain controls its own moving robot body, and secondly it will enable us to investigate how the brain learns and memorises its experiences.
'This research will move our understanding forward of how brains work, and could have a profound effect on many areas of science and medicine.'
Dr Ben Whalley, from the university's School of Pharmacy, added that the robot could provide a 'really unique opportunity' to investigate the activity of individual brain cells in relation to complex behaviours. Scientists at the University of Reading have created a robot with a biological brain that is capable of steering around objects withou... more -
Cops arrest woman in alleged restaurant rat scheme
Photo by steve_lodefink: http://flickr.com/photos/lodefink/1780848922/
Someone must have really needed the cash. Did they really think they wouldn't be caught?
In some ways this reminds me of the Wendy's thumb incident. I guess some people never learn. Photo by steve_lodefink: http://flickr.com/photos/lodefink/1780848922/ ... more -
Tim Noble and Sue Webster - A Pair of Dirty Fucking Rats
Dirty Fucking Rats by Tim Nobel and Sue Webster- where a projector is shown over a pile of junk-(or the PC term “found things”) to reflect on the wall a thrilling portrayal of new yorkers’ best friends.
Artwork details at artnet – 20th & 21st Century Design Dirty Fucking Rats by Tim Nobel and Sue Webster- where a projector is shown over a pile of junk-(or the PC term “found things”) to ref... more -
Check Out Your Chewing Gum, It May Cause Cancer
A substance used to make chewing gum could soon be declared toxic by the federal government after an international agency found that it might cause cancer in lab rats. A substance used to make chewing gum could soon be declared toxic by the federal government after an international agency found that i... more
-
Rats are ticklish
"The Rat Tickler" Jaak Panksepp tickles a rat. Apparently rats laugh in the ultrasound when they're tickled. They also seek the hand that tickled them (not to bite). "The Rat Tickler" Jaak Panksepp tickles a rat. Apparently rats laugh in the ultrasound when they're tickled. They also ... more
-
Mouse Jacket Grown, Euthanized In Museum Lab
In one of the odder stories we've spotted in some time, an installation called "Victimless Leather" was on display at NY's MoMA. The piece was actually a living jacket crafted from mouse embryonic stem cells, fed nutrients through tubes. But after five weeks, it grew too large for its containment flask and had to be killed.
The exhibit's curator cut the coat off from nutrition and it died thereafter. But the decision haunted her.
I've always been pro-choice and all of a sudden I'm here not sleeping at night about killing a coat...That thing was never alive before it was grown.
Personally, it's the image of a pulsating living rat coat that's going to keep me from sleeping. Did anyone see the exhibit? In one of the odder stories we've spotted in some time, an installation called "Victimless Leather" was on display at N... more -
cat/rat sleep together - blogTV
Check out Lucy Whip's vlog on cooking....and cats!
-
Woman found living with hundreds of rats and snakes
A woman has been found living with hundreds of rats and four malnourished snakes in a home in Washington, US. An official from the Area Agency on Aging alerted authorities about a month ago, but the 64-year-old woman, Michele Diller, who calls the rats her friends, has been uncooperative.
On Wednesday a search warrant was obtained and officers found the floor covered with rat droppings and the carpets soggy with rat urine. The house will need to be razed, as the rats have gnawed through wiring, walls, cupboards and drawers, leaving 'no lights or heat or sewage disposal'. Officials have said that two malnourished boa constrictors, a corn snake and a king snake were seized from cages.
Investigators believe the woman bought some rats to feed the boa constrictors, but they got loose and filled the house with their offspring. A woman has been found living with hundreds of rats and four malnourished snakes in a home in Washington, US. An official from the Ar... more -
World peace is simple
This guy with a dog, a cat and a rat shows us how simple it all is, really.
-
Woman VS. Rat; It's on bitches!
It's a time old story; woman VS. rat? Okay maybe not but this is definitely some news of the weird.
A disabled woman was horrified after being bitten by a rat which came up through her toilet while she was sitting on it.
Maxine Killingback, who lives on her own, jumped up in shock when she felt the rat bite the top of her leg and fell over onto the floor, hurting her back.
After drowning the rat herself using a plunger and barricading the toilet to stop other rats which were trying to get out, she phoned Greenwich Council in London only to be told she would have to wait three weeks for them to come and sort out the problem.
The 55 year-old was too afraid to go back in the bathroom and fled the flat to stay with her partner ina neighbouring suburb following the incident on March 17.
She said: "You don't expect to sit down to spend a penny and be bitten by a rat." It's a time old story; woman VS. rat? Okay maybe not but this is definitely some news of the weird. ... more -
It's the year of the rat, but what's a rat king?
Behold the legend of the rat king, a giant rat beast created when a load of rats get their tails tangled together. Fable has it that the rats then grow together into a single creepy, dirty, squeaking entity. Behold the legend of the rat king, a giant rat beast created when a load of rats get their tails tangled together. Fable has it that t... more
-
Mighty Mouse Lived!
Fossil hunters have found the remains of a one-tonne monster rat in the swamplands of South America. Dubbed Josephoartigasia monesi, the monster rat was described from a 53-centimetre-long fossil found in the River Plate region of Uruguay. It offers important clues about the lifestyle and diet of an ancient group of rodents called the dinomyids.
"It is exciting for people to know that a mouse heavier than two race horses [once lived] in South America."
Is it? I mean, yeah, it is. I'm just glad they're not still roaming the earth. Fossil hunters have found the remains of a one-tonne monster rat in the swamplands of South America. Dubbed Josephoartigasia monesi, t... more -
Giant Rats in Papua
Say what?
A giant rat and a (not as cool) pygmy possum, both believed to be new to science, "have been found in an ecological 'lost world' hidden in the pristine cloud forests of New Guinea."
The rat is five times the size of a sewer rat and has no fear of people. Oh heck no! They better recognize! Say what? ... more
-
related topics
Rats
Contributors (110)
Rats
