http://www.associatedcontent.com/art..._improved.html
If we had to figure out a place where this super-rat would be located, you'd figure it would have to be Detroit, right?
**No, I did not doctor the quotation for this article.
Quote:
| . . . a group of researchers in Australia discovered a new breed of rat -- a super rat if you will - a black rat that is spreading its own vicious brand of disease all over the world and even some parts of Detroit. According to findings presented at the 2008 Archaeological Science Conference, potentially fatal rat-borne diseases, such as typhus and leptospirosis, are likely to spread farther around the world thanks to the efforts of this new heavyweight rodent. Researchers led by mammalogist Ken Aplin of Australia's Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (www.csiro.au) compared DNA sequences from 170 urban and wild black rats from around the world to create a sort of rat-family-tree. The data they collected allowed the team to track the rat's prehistoric and modern migrations and to investigate its impact on people in modern times. What the researchers discovered was not exactly good news. It was no secret that black rats wreak havoc on agriculture, especially in Asia, and remain a major source of human disease. But according to www.australianarchaeologicalassociation.com, the rodent is much more genetically diverse than previously thought. Aplin and his team identified a whopping six lineage of rat, each of which could turn out to be a separate species. According to the genetic data, the first strain of this pest first appeared in Southeast Asia about a million years ago. . . |
**No, I did not doctor the quotation for this article.
