Ra Oats can't vomit. This may be a function of their anatomy-their stomachs are "not well structured for moving contents towards the esophagus" is how one study delicately put it--or it may have something to do with their brain circuitry, or it may be a combination of the two. Whatever the cause, the result is that rats, contrary to their popular (or unpopular) image, are fussy eaters. Even as they pick through the trash, they're hesitant to try new foods. This makes poisoning them complicated; quite often and quite literally-they won't take the bait.
In 1942, a Johns Hopkins biologist named Curt Richter discovered a new poison that rats apparently couldn't taste.
His breakthrough caught the attention of the United States Office of Scientific Research and Development, the Second World War equivalent of DARPA. The agency, among its many worries, feared that the Axis powers were at work on biological weapons that would use rats as vectors. (In fact, the Japanese did try to spread plague during the war, with some success.) The O.S.R.D. had the poison-alpha-naphthyl thiourea, or ANTU for short-tested in the back alleys of Baltimore. The city was so pleased with the resulting carnage that it appointed Richter to lead a new rodentcontrol office, based in City Hall. By 1946, ANTU-laced corn had been spread over more than fifty-five hundred blocks and, according to Richter, "well over a million rats" had been killed.
By that point, however, ANTU was starting to lose its efficacy. Apparently, rats were learning to associate adulterated corn with unpleasant consequences and becoming bait-shy. New measures, it was realized, would be needed, and an even more ambitious research effort was born-the Rodent Ecology Project.
Diese Geschichte stammt aus der October 07, 2024-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
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Diese Geschichte stammt aus der October 07, 2024-Ausgabe von The New Yorker.
Starten Sie Ihre 7-tägige kostenlose Testversion von Magzter GOLD, um auf Tausende kuratierte Premium-Storys sowie über 8.000 Zeitschriften und Zeitungen zuzugreifen.
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YULE RULES
“Christmas Eve in Miller’s Point.”
COLLISION COURSE
In Devika Rege’ first novel, India enters a troubling new era.
NEW CHAPTER
Is the twentieth-century novel a genre unto itself?
STUCK ON YOU
Pain and pleasure at a tattoo convention.
HEAVY SNOW HAN KANG
Kyungha-ya. That was the entirety of Inseon’s message: my name.
REPRISE
Reckoning with Donald Trump's return to power.
WHAT'S YOUR PARENTING-FAILURE STYLE?
Whether you’re horrifying your teen with nauseating sex-ed analogies or watching TikToks while your toddler eats a bagel from the subway floor, face it: you’re flailing in the vast chasm of your child’s relentless needs.
COLOR INSTINCT
Jadé Fadojutimi, a British painter, sees the world through a prism.
THE FAMILY PLAN
The pro-life movement’ new playbook.
President for Sale - A survey of today's political ads.
On a mid-October Sunday not long ago sun high, wind cool-I was in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, for a book festival, and I took a stroll. There were few people on the streets-like the population of a lot of capital cities, Harrisburg's swells on weekdays with lawyers and lobbyists and legislative staffers, and dwindles on the weekends. But, on the façades of small businesses and in the doorways of private homes, I could see evidence of political activity. Across from the sparkling Susquehanna River, there was a row of Democratic lawn signs: Malcolm Kenyatta for auditor general, Bob Casey for U.S. Senate, and, most important, in white letters atop a periwinkle not unlike that of the sky, Kamala Harris for President.
