SCIENCE

Mammals of Mass Destruction

Without humans, rats might still be an obscure species endemic to a forest in Asia. Now scientists are trying to understand the global pests we're responsible for creating.

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  • Posted By: Brien Comerford @ 05/12/2008 7:52:13 PM

    Rats are extremely intelligent, sociable and adaptable. Countless people have wonderful pet rats. There is a temple in India that reveres rats. I do fear rats but I assert that rat overpopulation should be humanely curtailed via placing potent contraceptives in food bait for them.

  • Posted By: emmarcee @ 02/08/2008 8:56:55 AM

    Is Newsweek, dissed at Asians for supporting Hillary? Sorry guys,

    • Posted By: DrZook @ 02/13/2008 5:45:28 AM

      Do you take every opportunity to express this paranoid idea that everybody is out to get Asians? Once again, no-one here knows what your ethnicity is until you tell them. Or maybe you think we are all watching you? You seem like someone who is really, really stressed out. Please get some therapy before you flip out completely and hurt yourself or others.

  • Posted By: bridgeta @ 02/11/2008 8:34:39 PM

    i think....Right rats do have a bad rep, and are GREAT animals, rats are amazlingly smart, but i think we should ues them 4 better things the animals testing....the worse thing created by man....since science has created things that make animal testing not needed, why dont we just stop this nonsense and STOP DOING IT....

    • Posted By: DrZook @ 02/13/2008 5:38:59 AM

      Rats are indeed very clever creatures with excellent survival skills in an urban environment. I am currently reading "The World Without Us" by Alan Weisman. He has some illuminating comments regarding rats therein. he points out that rats survive in large numbers in the modern world because they are parasitic in respect to human culture. We feed them with garbage and warehouses full of grain and other foodstuffs. The truth of the matter is that while they may have originated in warm Chinese forests, that they would actually not do very well in temperate climates that experience winters, without warm buildings built by humans being made available. The cockroach is another creature in the same situation. They survive year round where there are warm buildings in which to live, but being tropical creatures originally, they would not survive a cold winter. I very much recommend Weisman's book. Very interesting stuff.

  • Posted By: emmarcee @ 02/12/2008 12:46:23 PM

    what discussion are you talking about? In both of your first statements, what I saw was some kind of Elitism, if not blatant racism with a mask of elitism. So you think somebody need to go through a college level English Literature course to read Newsweek and comment. How about not publishing BS just to give a bad rap about Asian countries? That article was so bad that they hid it from site after a few hours. Did you see that? Contrary to all your prejudices, I am very well educated, but never had to "study" English. I am fine, I get by through all the obstacles white America has created in the system. I am also sure that you consider yourself a "liberal", a group I was surprised to see as ignorant about other cultures as the other 80% of America. Let me get back to my company. ..

    • Posted By: DrZook @ 02/12/2008 2:46:11 PM

      The discussion that I am talking about (which ought to be obvious to anyone) is the one that is occurring here right in front of your eyes. To one to which you are responding. Do you know what the word even "discussion" means? Look it up in a dictionary if you do not. Do you own a dictionary? Do you know what a dictionary is? How typical of an intellectually impoverished and :"politically correct" person that you believe that a comment regarding someone's inability to properly communicate in a comprehensible fashion is "racist"! Guess what? I can't see you or anyone else who posting to this page. i have no idea what your "race" is unless you tell me. What I can see is the poorly written posts of yourself and the person calling themselves "Omoeegun" to whom my original comment was directed before you jumped in and made this matter your business. I see now what your problem is: You have a chip on your shoulder because you are of an Asian background and feel that so-called "white America" has created problems for you in your life. You can read hidden messages and implications into my statements if you wish, but my comments were directed only and solely at the inability of two of the persons posting here to communicate properly in the English language. Note well that you have absolutely no idea what my cultural or national background would be or my political beliefs, yet you feel you can jump to conclusions about such things. I would point out that you have your own prejudices, so you may wish to examine those. I see that you writing has improved in your last post and you have actually calmed down and stopped swearing at me, so perhaps my comments have done you some good. I notice Omoeegun has not responded to my original post. Hopefully he is spending his time improving his English language skills rather than taking me to task as you have done. I have already mentioned to you that I have studied the French, German, Russian and Japanese languages. While you are imagining implications in what I have to say, you might imagine that having studied four other languages, besides my native tongue, that I have some interest in other cultures and have acquired some knowledge in that direction. Perhaps you suffer from prejudice because you engage in prejudice? As for America, I am not myself an American. I have traveled extensively in the U.S. and have a number of friends there. It is a country with some wonderful things to recommend it, but at the same time it has some very serious social problems. The most serious of those problems is the persistent refusal of the general population to educate themselves. which was the point of my original post here. The U.S. spends more money on educational facilities that any other wealthy nation and yet their general population is woefully ignorant. Many, many, many Americans are so woefully ignorant that they are not aware that they ar

  • Posted By: emmarcee @ 02/11/2008 10:52:32 AM

    DrFook - I meant it that way and I think you are very tight- a--ed.. and now do you want to get the rest o fthe English I know? Keep checking your cartoons when your world is slipping under your foot, Now Fook OFF.

    • Posted By: DrZook @ 02/12/2008 2:10:01 AM

      Isn't that typical of the ignorant and uneducated! They cannot come out on top in a discussion with a civil, reasoned argument, so they result to vulgar comments. You do not offend me in the least sir, since you have said nothing that is to my detriment and have clearly demonstrated to everyone reading your statements you how intellectually impoverished you truly are. Yes, you have definitely proven to everyone that the majority of your English vocabulary is merely crude language. I hope you enjoy the balance of your wretched, mindless existence in the company of your troglodyte companions and your minimum wage job.

  • Posted By: emmarcee @ 02/08/2008 8:47:13 AM

    DrFook, your menion of English literacy shows that you are a narrow minded guy. ( i have seen this prejudice before as an Asian- American) Why the dr suffix? Europe's (before colononisers came to america) rise was only through trade with the "rat infested" asian countries. There is a price to pay for everything, right? Of course in Northern Europe, it is hard even for people to survive. Don't forget the plague infested Europe. One more thing, it was not just rat, even the concept of Dog being your pet started from Indian subcontinent. In Old world, most of europe was still Barbarians. OK? YOu guys learned culture after being slaves of Romans - whose ships probably carried rats more than 2000 years ago. This article is good new year gift for Asians. Thanks

    • Posted By: DrZook @ 02/09/2008 9:09:34 AM

      So even mentioning the idea that others should have a reasonable standard of of English literacy is being "narrow minded"? How very politically correct! I note that you misunderstood my post from the very first word. My pseudonym is "DrZook" not "DrFook". Dr. Zook was a character in the newspaper comic strip "Hagar the Horrible". You are sufficiently literate to read a comic strip are you? Your own post was rambling, ungrammatical and non-sequitur. I see why you defend others who cannot communicate properly in English, since you seem to have trouble doing so yourself. i speak English as my native tongue, French as my second language and have studied German, Russian and Japanese. Knowing that I am not fluent in those other four languages, i would have the good sense and courtesy to check over a communication to a publication before I sent it off. There is a narrow range of correct usage of any language. outside that narrow range one begins to lapse into incomprehensibility. So since I believe in writing within that correct, narrow range of usage in ANY language, I suppose that I am in that sense narrow minded. Judging by your ungrammatical, rambling and non-sequitur post, I can see that you are not narrow minded. You must be proud of being so politically correct that you are almost impossible to understand!

  • Posted By: clarksonrollins@sbcglobal.net @ 02/08/2008 1:28:18 AM

    You just gotta love a good old fashioned Willard story! Sucess in a niche is usally provided by another and it is humans that have become the host in this case. You can drop then from a 5 story building and they will survive, Feed them rat poison and they grow fatter and just live a bit shorter lives and their offspring are imnuine to whatever poison it was in the next generation. You gotta love rats, between them and *** Roaches, another species that has exploted us. They both will survive long after the human race self destructs. Kind of ironic isn't it...

  • Posted By: DrZook @ 02/08/2008 12:54:18 AM

    Dear Omoeegun, I am not surprised in the least that you have not read about such matters. In fact I would be surprised if you had read much of anything in any subject, since you appear to be barely literate in the English language. Perhaps you could learn to read and write properly and then go on to study matters that are well known and understood by most educated individuals?

  • Posted By: Newsweekman @ 02/07/2008 11:34:03 PM

    uh... Look into American History. We infected Native Americans with Typhoid and other diseases. These came from Eupope and spread through the Natives who had no defense against them.

  • Posted By: omoeegun @ 02/07/2008 9:58:25 PM

    Ever since i,m born i have never seen or read any article that traces origins of infectious diseases to the western world or could you write about anyone that got transfered from the whites to some other races?

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