Rat Facts of the Day

5:27 PM Posted In Edit This
Rat Facts 1-5

1. Rats bathe/groom themselves 6 or more times a day

2. Rat's don't have gallbladders or tonsils
3. Rats resemble a 1.5 year old nonverbal toddler- To me they seem a bit smarter than that though
4. Rats are capable of making relatively complex assoaciations
5. They say that rats enjoy classical music.

More facts to come.

Some more rat art.

5:19 PM Posted In Edit This





This is a feature I'll be doing a lot here at WWR. I'll be showcasing various rat art from around the world and the net.

The Rat Girl

4:52 PM Posted In Edit This
Found this photo on Flickr. It's simply titled "The Rat Girl"

EDIT: oops, sorry.. Flickr doesn't let you download some Photo's. So here is the link:

http://flickr.com/photos/tingreen/2071388330/

Rat Art

4:35 PM Posted In Edit This

I just found this rat painting and had to share!!

Indian Temple

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I know most of us rat lovers have seen these photo but i thought I'd add it to my blog. Hopefully sometime before i leave this space and time i will get to visit this incredible place







For more pics go here:
http://www.flickzzz.com/2008/03/karni-mata-rat-temple-in-india.html

MIT researchers catch rats' twitchy whiskers in action.

4:03 PM Posted In , Edit This
Interesting article

MIT researchers catch rats' twitchy whiskers in action

Cathryn M. Delude, McGovern Institute
February 27, 2008

Rats use their whiskers in a way that is closely related to the human sense of touch: Just as humans move their fingertips across a surface to perceive shapes and textures, rats twitch their whiskers to achieve the same goal. Now, in a finding that could help further understanding of perception across species, MIT neuroscientists have used high-speed video to reveal rat whiskers in action and show the tiny movements that underlie the rat's perception of its tactile environment.

Rats rely on whiskers to find their way in the dark, and they devote large areas of their brains to decoding the incoming signals, explains Christopher Moore, a member of the McGovern Institute for Brain Research at MIT and senior author of a study in the February 28th issue of Neuron. Neuroscientists interested in perception have studied the whisker system intensively, but the information conveyed to the brain by whisker motions has remained a mystery--until now.

"Now that we can see what the rat's whiskers are telling the brain, we can start to understand better how this amazing perceptual system works," says Moore, who is also an assistant professor in MIT's Department of Brain and Cognitive Sciences. "This understanding is relevant not only to the human sense of touch, but to all forms of perception, because every sensory organ is an interface between the mind and the external world."

What might a whisker-based sensation feel like? Imagine sweeping a stick across a picket fence. The frequency of vibrations depends on the spacing between the pickets, but the sensation in the hand is also affected by the length and flexibility of the stick and the speed of its movement.

Likewise, Moore reasoned, the whiskers' movements and mechanical properties must influence the information that they relay to the brain. The whiskers are arranged in a pattern on the snout, with the shortest ones at the front. Experiments with isolated whiskers had demonstrated that, like harp strings, shorter whiskers are 'tuned' to resonate at higher frequencies, creating a map of frequency information within the brain. But until now, no one had managed to see the detailed pattern of whisker movements in freely behaving animals.

Like the famous images MIT's Harold "Doc" Edgerton made of bullets going through apples, the slow-motion version of these new movies provides the first glimpse of the micromotions that the whiskers transmit to the rat brain.

"We knew from watching rats' behavior that there must be whisker micromotions that were too rapid to measure using available recording techniques," explains Jason Ritt, a postdoctoral scientist in Moore's lab and first author of the study. Ritt therefore spent several years developing a video system that captures whisker movements at a rate of 3,200 frames per second --- 100 times faster than typical home videos --- and an automatic tracking system to analyze the resulting deluge of video data, about 1 gigabyte per second.

For the experiments, the researchers trained rats to choose either a smooth or a rough surface using their whiskers. Correct choices were rewarded with chocolate milk, and the whisker movements were captured on video. Analysis of the video revealed an unexpectedly complex pattern of movements, including periodic 'waves' of motion when the rat touched a smooth surface, and irregular, large and high-velocity movements when contacting a rough surface.

"These patterns are larger and more complex than anything previously observed in anesthetized animals or plucked whiskers, but they are the key to a rat's perceptions and behavior," comments Moore.

This study was supported by grants from the NIH and NSF, a predoctoral fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute to second author Mark L. Andermann, and a Burroughs Wellcome Career Award at the Scientific Interface to Ritt.

A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on March 5, 2008 (download PDF).


Welcome to Wonderful World of Rats

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Welcome to my newest blog.

For the debut of my new blog i am using the Ratatouille template. This template is only for the debut, the first few weeks and than it will be changed to the template i use for all my blogs. I thought for the debut of my WWR blog that this would be the most appropriate template, don't you agree?

So, what is Wonderful World of Rats?? Well, it is exactly like my other blog "Wonderful World of Animals" only this blog focuses only on rats. Yes, obviously... if you don't know already... i love rats.

What will be on WWR? Well... great rat pics firstly and all rat-related things.. such as ineresting articles for the rat lover. Anything and everything Rats.

I will also be having guest bloggers from the various rat groups i belong to.

There is so much to come here at WWR (the sister forum of WWA). I plan to do a lot of things with this blog.

I hope you enjoy it is as much as i enjoy it. If you have any idea's, comments or questions... please feel free to leave me a comment.

And coming soon to my Blog arena-- "The official Nubby blog"

Please check back often for like my other blog this blog will be updated daily, probably a few times a day.. as time allows and with all the great stuff i can find online.

Take care and enjoy!

Rebecca