From Wired News: Furthermore —
What are giant African rats good for, anyway? In Mozambique, the critters are doing a bang-up job detecting deadly land mines, which have killed and injured an unknown number of people since the country’s civil war ended more than a decade ago. Unlike mine-detecting canines, which are prone to boredom on the job, rats seem to enjoy sniffing out land mines. Plus, they happily accept cheap rewards, like bananas and peanuts, and can perform monotonous tasks for long periods. They also work single-mindedly and can be deployed in large numbers due to their small size and light weight. “It is a stereotype, but rats have proved to work better (than men) and pose little danger,” commented a delegate to a conference on the 1997 Ottawa Convention, which banned land mines.
Which reminds me. Did you hear the National Institutes of Health have decided not to use lab rats any longer? They’re going to use lawyers instead. For three reasons. One, there are more lawyers than rats. Two, the lab technicians sometimes grew attached to the rats. And, three, there are some things rats won’t do.
(With apologies to lawyers, including especially those I love.)