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Happy Chinese New Year! -- Rat Science Or Myth 1. Outsize rats have made headlines lately. In December, National Geographic News reported that a 3-pound rat had been found in western New Guinea in June, and may be part of a species new to science. An expert was quoted as saying this critter is five times the size of a typical city rat. There was even bigger news in January. According to Britain's Times Online, "The fossilized skull of a rat the size of a small car has been unearthed." The skull, found in Uruguay, was from a rodent that lived about 4 million years ago, was about 10 feet long and weighed a ton. Its incisors were more than a foot long. Scientists believe it ate fruit and aquatic plants. The big fellow goes by the scientific moniker of Josephoartigasia monesi. 2. This phenomenon may or may not be a hoax. From time to time, people (especially in Germany) claim that they have unearthed a very strange item known as a rat king. This is a group of underground-dwelling rodents who, by some mysterious accident, have gotten their tails hopelessly tangled together, and have essentially been turned into a single, seething mass of ratdom. It's a very creepy idea, and there is a mummified rat king that is on display at a museum in Altenburg, Germany. Some scientists are dubious about rat kings and assign them to the category of "cryptozoology," which includes various questionable, fraudulent and mythical creatures such as the unicorn and the Loch Ness monster. This article appeared on page N - 19 of the San Francisco Chronicle , Sunday, February 3, 2008, Sunday, February 3, 2008 |
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2/6/2008 1:15 am |
Curiosity, .... Do you belong to the year of the Rat??????????
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2/5/2008 10:48 am |
The first two years of my graduate studies I worked as a research assistant and I had to care for over a thousand rats in several different experiments. I have an affinity for them because they are very important in the development of drugs, and other medical procedures. They are basically the first in the chain of experiments in living creatures to screen the best and the worst of the chemical cocktails that help to cure disease. I just VICKY
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2/5/2008 5:05 am |
hmm............ You seem to have a liking for rats. They say the year of the Rat is good luck for the year of the tiger. Me........... Never let stuff like this to control my fate. But, will not reject reading such stuff. Need a little myth and story to keep communication going with colleagues. wish you a chinese new year cheers chee wai
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