‘Perfect rat storm’: urban rodent numbers soar as the climate heats, study finds

Sharp rise in population in 11 of 16 cities expected to continue as rising temperatures make it easier for the animals to breed, say researchers

Rat numbers are soaring in cities as global temperatures warm, research shows.

Washington DC, San Francisco, Toronto, New York City and Amsterdam had the greatest increase in these rodents, according to the study, which looked at data from 16 cities globally. Eleven of the cities showed “significant increasing trends in rat numbers”, said the paper published in the journal Science Advances, and these trends were likely to continue.

Continue reading...

from The Guardian https://ift.tt/wIpl0Ed

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Couture review – Angelina Jolie is the wrong fit for inert fashion drama

Toronto film festival: the Oscar winner is adrift in Alice Winocour’s uninvolving film about three thinly written women involved in a Paris fashion week show The otherworldly beauty and consuming, tattoo-strewn look of Angelina Jolie hasn’t always allowed for a great deal of versatility as an actor, a difficult face to seamlessly slot into most stories. The star hasn’t seemed to be all that interested in acting for a while anyway (since 2012, she has physically appeared on screen just seven times) and has preferred to spend time behind the camera and focusing on both her family and her philanthropic pursuits. Her films as a director have been of both genuinely noble intention and minimal cinematic value (her last effort, Without Blood , premiered at last year’s Toronto film festival but still doesn’t have US distribution) and as she enters her 50s, it seems like she’s rediscovered her passion for acting again. The catastrophic box office for her ill-advised entry into the Marvel u...
Read more

At least six civilians killed in militant attack on courthouse in south-east Iran

Jihadist separatist group Jaish al-Adl says it launched mortar, shooting and grenade attack in Sistan-Baluchestan An attack by the jihadist separatist group Jaish al-Adl on a courthouse in Iran’s south-eastern province of Sistan-Baluchestan has killed at least six civilians, including a mother and child, and wounded 22, Iranian media reported on Saturday. Attackers stormed the building, shooting a number of people inside. They then launched a second attack with mortars and grenade launchers on the courthouse, where a clash began with security forces that lasted three hours, according to the Baluch human rights group Haalvsh. Continue reading... from The Guardian https://ift.tt/wleJfAd
Read more

The heartbreak of watching a parent fall for fraud: ‘Dad, this is a scam – have you given her money?’ | Naima Brown

The scammers my dad encountered were not sophisticated, my father suspended his own disbelief wilfully. But many scammers are sophisticated and they’re getting harder to detect Bomba wasn’t the first, but she exploded in our lives like a digital grenade. She’s not real, I told my dad – then in his early seventies. I was in Australia at this time, where I’ve lived for the last 13 years. Physically speaking, he was still in California – but within himself he was adrift in a rapidly sinking lifeboat, floating in a morass of debris primarily of his own doing. But it must be said before I go further: my dad isn’t the bad guy in this story. Not this time. At times, he was the bad guy in other people’s stories– but that is another story. If she’s not real, he countered, then how is it that we’ve spoken on the phone? That we video-chatted? I’ll admit that threw me. In most catfishing stories the catfish goes to great lengths to avoid video chatting. But my dad being the unreliable sourc...
Read more