Lassa fever will keep ravaging Nigeria unless better surveillance is put in place
Lassa outbreaks are becoming more widespread in Nigeria but have not been given national emergency status like Ebola.
Academic rigor, journalistic flair
Articles on Rats
Displaying 1 - 20 of 25 articles
‘Gene drives’ could wipe out whole populations of pests in one fell swoop
Releasing just 100 mice carrying a faulty gene designed to stop them reproducing can remove an entire population of 50,000, a new study shows, paving the way for new eradication efforts.
Why controlling rats on small-scale African farms is vital for food security
Agricultural pests are one of the key factors affecting small holder farmer production. Focus is normally put on invertebrate pests, but rodents can do severe damage to crops as well.
Huddled mice could change the way we think about evolution
Animals that group together to fight off evolutionary pressure may actually evolve faster.
Invasive predators are eating the world’s animals to extinction – and the worst is close to home
Cats, rats, foxes and other mammal predators have been implicated in 60% of the world's animals extinctions.
Scientist at work: Revealing the secret lives of urban rats
Rats foul our food, spread disease and damage property, but we know very little about them. A biologist explains how he tracks wild rats in New York City, and what he's learned about them so far.
Hidden housemates: rats in the ranks
Rats have lived with us for thousands of years.
Solomon Islands expedition seeks to conserve the extraordinary monkey-faced bat and giant rat
An expedition to the Solomon Islands to investigate rare monkey-faced bats and giant rats will help preserve these remarkable species.
Explainer: understanding plague in the 21st century
Plague, one of the deadliest diseases in the world, has been reported in several African countries in the past decade.
Epigenetics: Can stress really change your genes?
We all know that stress can wreak havoc on your health but what does it do to your genes?
Health Check: Stressed at work? How to beat common traps in the rat race
In many of the workplaces I visit as a neuroscientist, stressed workers behave much like addicted lab rats. But you don't have to quit the rat race to start feeling better at work.
Killing cats, rats and foxes is no silver bullet for saving wildlife
Research published this week shows saving wildlife is much more complicated than killing introduced predators. Killing predators often doesn't work, and is sometimes actually worse for native wildlife.
What rats in a maze can teach us about our sense of direction
When we figure out how places connect geographically, local maps in the brain join into a single, overarching map.
Behavioural study shows that rats know how to repay a favour
Altruistic behaviour is not just for humans, lab rat behaviour test shows.
Researchers able to erase and reactivate memories in rats at will
Memories can be selectively removed in rats with an altered memory reactivated in its place, according to a new study by…
Oh rats! Decline of large animals lets rodents thrive
Declining numbers of zebra, antelope and other big grazers cause rodent populations to rapidly increase, a new study has shown. Published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Hillary…
Rise of the super rat: rodents detect landmines, sniff out TB, find disaster victims
When it comes to thinking about disease, rats are usually thought of as vermin that carry plague and pestilence. But what about rats being used to sniff out diseases such as tuberculosis in people’s saliva…
Malaria link to West African bats
Malaria parasites that infect West African bats are closely related to parasites which are used to model human malaria in…
Animals in research: rats
Our series, Animals in Research, profiles the top organisms used for science experimentation. In this instalment, we look at the original lab rats: Rattus norvegicus. Rats have a long history in medical…
The birdlife of South Georgia is handed another chance
Across the world, the damage caused by invasive alien species is second only to habitat destruction by humans in reducing the planet’s biodiversity. Their effect is especially potent on islands. Cats…
Top contributors
-
Senior Lecturer in Ecology, Centre for Integrative Ecology, School of Life & Environmental Sciences, Deakin University
-
Professor in Terrestrial Ecology, University of Sydney
-
ARC DECRA Fellow, Charles Sturt University
-
Research Fellow, Deakin University
-
University of Sydney
-
Professor of Conservation Biology, School of Life and Environmental Sciences, University of Sydney
-
Professor of Animal Conservation, University of Dundee
-
Professor of Neurophysiology, Macquarie University
-
Masters of research student, Macquarie University
-
Masters Student, School of Advanced Medicine,, Macquarie University
-
Postdoctoral research fellow, School of Mathematical Sciences, University of Adelaide
-
Research Professor, Sokoine University of Agriculture
-
Postdoctoral fellow, FP7 Marie Curie Cofund Agreenskills+, Aarhus University
-
Honorary Reader in Vision and Computational Neuroscience, University of Sheffield
-
Assoc Prof in Invasion Biogeography and Biosecurity, University of Adelaide
Most read on The Conversation
Why today’s teens aren’t in any hurry to grow up
Does marijuana affect your sleep?
The ‘internet of things’ is sending us back to the Middle Ages
Massive sunspots and huge solar flares mean unexpected space weather for Earth
Want to fix America’s health care? First, focus on food
Seeds in space – how well can they survive harsh, non-Earth conditions?
Hurricanes drive immigration to the US
Why Trump’s tirades are losing their potency
Languages don’t all have the same number of terms for colors – scientists have a new theory why
