This Week in Science!!!

A career in writing will lead to premature aging and a healthy dose of personal humiliation. But science and medicine is where you'll make money, fame, and the respect of your parents. As a result, we might as well pay attention to what they're doing in those fields.

So it's time to take another peak at anything going on in the world of science and medicine this week.


Starting off with:  Murder on the prairies.

story one:
Prairie dogs are adorable serial killers.

Alleged serial killer.

The prairie dog might look cute and pose for casual photography, but that's just so you'll let your guard down—which is what ground squirrels are apparently doing in their midst.

John Hoogland of the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science tells the website Gizmodo that after studying wild prairie dogs in Colorado he can faithfully report the first documented case of a mammalian herbivore killing another mammalian herbivore on a routine basis, purely to wipe them out. In essence, prairie dogs are blood-lusting murderers the likes prime time crime dramas have never seen. We potentially have the next NCIS franchise created right before us.

In Hoogland's study, 163 ground squirrels were killed by 47 different prairie dogs for no other reason than the squirrel existed as competition for food. Being an herbivore, the prairie dog held no desire to eat the squirrel—it just wanted the squirrel dead, preferably in a fairly macabre manner.

But how messy a murder are we really talking here? As Hoogland tells Gizmodo, "Prairie dogs will chase ground squirrels—usually babies—and if they catch them, they shake them violently. While they’re shaking, they’re biting the back of the neck to sever the vertebral column. Sometimes they grab by the head and literally debrain the baby. It’s violent, savage, and awful." Or, as Hoogland also tells NewScientist, the murders are "quick, subtle and unanticipated."

As opposed to all of those anticipated baby animal murders I've been hanging my hat onto. Thankfully they're subtle about it though. We want to keep it classy after all.



story two:
Your cat is slowly trying to drive you insane.

Plotting world domination one step at a time.

Mr. Whiskers has long had it out for you. Eating your plants, coughing up hairballs onto the carpet, or bringing a dead bird home, you've suspected he's up to something. And it turns out he might be doing more to mess with you than you imagined.

Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite found in cat feces, among other places, has been linked to a variety of potential mental health disorders, from schizophrenia to higher rates of suicide. Now, a report published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry says there's a correlation to people with toxoplasmosis having inexplicable rage—and not just because Mr. Whiskers has decided to use your living room chair as a scratching post.

Called "intermittent explosive disorder," it's defined as having moments of unexplained, violent, angry eruptions out of proportion to the situation. Individuals with toxoplasmosis (most likely from Mr. Whiskers) show signs of having the disorder with higher frequency than those who do not.

The parasite doesn't affect cats, in fact it's beneficial. As IFL Science notes, "From a cat’s perspective T. gondii is more symbiont than parasite. Cats spread it to rodents, whose behaviour changes to make them easier to catch."

That's right. Like any criminal mastermind, Mr. Whiskers dopes up his prey before going for the kill. That means he's just playing the long game with you until he gets his chance.



story three:
City birds are buff and smart. Country birds are jealous, potentially.

Soon to be mayor over all of this.

Forget felines overthrowing humanity. Birds are one up on them.

First, pigeons were found out to be expert radiologists in the making, now researchers say city birds exploit their environments better for survival compared to country birds. As a result, they're stronger and smarter, too. This is the sort of personality profile usually only seen in fraudulent eHarmony ads.

Scientists at McGill University performed a small study and say urban birds are more resistant to infection, perform better on cognitive tests, are better problem solvers, and probably know where ALL the best restaurants are downtown.

Fifty-three bullfinches from different parts of Barbados were studied, and researchers found city birds had a bolder temperament and could open drawers faster when looking for food than country birds, who are apparently demure and less likely to lead a life of petty theft when jonesing for a bite to eat.

One look at the size and intelligence of Big Bird from Sesame Street proves all of this about city birds anyway.



story four:
Now rats are diagnosing disease.

Would appreciate a cantaloupe once in awhile.

World domination at the hands of long derided city "pests" is slowly building, as rats are now being trained to detect tuberculosis.

The Hero Rats program, run by an NGO called APOPO in Tanzania, has taught 29 African giant-pouched rats to detect the deadly—but curable—disease which afflicts 10 million people a year, and kills over 1.5 million. Typical lab testing with technicians is slow and laborious, but the rats can detect roughly 100 samples in 20 minutes. Lab technicians would take nearly four days analyzing such a volume.

As part of the program, the rats learn to stop and alert someone if they smell TB on a sample from a patient. As a reward, they receive a small piece of banana. Robin Toal, community manager at APOPO, says the rats are free to retire whenever they want from the program.

Huh?

"As soon as we think they don't want to do it, then we'll happily let them retire," Toal tells NPR. "And they can live out their days lounging with their friends, snacking on watermelon, running on wheels, chasing their tails, whatever they want to do."

Clearly rats can't be that intelligent after all or they'd have learned to negotiate for better benefits. A bite of banana or watermelon? It has to be a complete Edible Arrangement or they go on strike.