The Amazing Bamboo
	In the world of the building materials, bamboo could compete successfully against steel, concrete, wood and glass. Because of its exceptional mechanical qualities, low price and design, bamboo could turn into one of the preferred building materials of the future. Even if it looks like a tree, the bamboo is just a woody perennial evergreen grass, related to cereals like wheat, corn or rice. For more than 2,000 years, the bamboo has been ... [read more >>]
	29 March 2008, 09:02GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Fly 'Borgs' May Be Spying on Us as We Speak!
	Well not really, because it's still cold outside. But just wait until summer, you'll see then; there will be flies and fly-spies all over the place, you won't be able to make the difference! Just kidding! Well, it seems that science fiction has given some 'mad' scientists new ideas, not that cybernetic implants would be something out of the ordinary our days. Nonetheless, beetles, flies, rats or even sharks could q ... [read more >>]
	10 March 2008, 12:22GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

How Are Whiskers Used for Orientation?
	You see, the whiskers of a cat or rat are not adornments, but highly sensitive organs. It appears that much more sensitive than we could think: like a tuned harp, the whiskers of a rat detect various frequencies depending on their structure. In the dark underground sewers and galleries, rats cannot use the sight. Previous studies had shown that the shorter whiskers located at the front of rats' snouts are specialized to detect[ADM ... [read more >>]
	28 February 2008, 04:00GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Black Rats Bring Evidence of Our Ancient Voyages and Disease Spread
	We abhor them and only their sight can make us sick. But they represent one of the oldest human companions, that's why the DNA of the Black Rat (Rattus rattus) has proved to be useful in explaining how ancient people and diseases spread together with the ancient black rats. Today, this rat is spread all around the world; it was brought involuntarily by humans, but the species appeared in Eastern/Southern Asia. The new study presen ... [read more >>]
	04 February 2008, 03:48GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Weird Creature Is Pain Insensitive
	These odd rodents are ugly as hell. The mole rats are hairless, wrinkled, cold blooded (the only case known in mammals) and... totally insensitive to the pain induced by acids or chili peppers, according to a new research. Mole rats live in colonies in poor-oxygenated burrows about 2 m (6 ft) underground, in Eastern and Southern Africa. Mole rats were known to be highly sensitive to touch, to compensate for their useless sight in the d ... [read more >>]
	29 January 2008, 03:08GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

World's Largest Rat Ever: One Tonne (2,200 Pounds)!
	Don't be fooled by the humble size of a mouse or rat because their extinct relatives were bigger than cows. And now, the largest rodent ever has been discovered: a one tonne Josephoartigasia monesi, as big as a big bison bull, which lived 2 million years ago. The impressive skull of 53 cm (1.8 ft) in length was encountered in a broken boulder on the coast of Uruguay by Andrés Rinderknecht of the Uruguayan National Museum ... [read more >>]
	16 January 2008, 04:13GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

New Cat Sized Rat Species!
	Most cats are chicken enough not to face regular rats. But this rat would fight from equal to equal with a cat. An expedition made by an American-Indonesian team in a remote jungle in western New Guinea, in the area Papua province of Indonesia, has found a giant rat and a tiny possum that seem to be new undescribed species, pointing to the stunning biodiversity of the area. Further research will clear if the animals are newfou ... [read more >>]
	18 December 2007, 05:01GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Rats and Cats, Trained to Detect Landmines
	Playing cat and mouse can have a different outcome from what we see in some cartoons. Tom and Jerry can be even very good friends when solving some very special tasks. In the past years, a special Colombian police unit has been training rats and cats put in the same cages as part of a project to teach the rodents to sniff out the over 100,000 landmines planted especially by leftist rebels across Columbia. The standard met ... [read more >>]
	26 July 2007, 04:16GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Rats Can Laugh!
	What could rats think when they laugh at us? That we, as humans, are ugly? Various researches revealed that monkeys and dogs enjoy a good laugh. Now, it seems that rats do that too, pointing to the fact that people have been laughing for many millions of years, not ever since we turned into humans. "Indeed, neural circuits for laughter exist in very ancient regions of the brain, and ancestral forms of play and laught ... [read more >>]
	12 June 2007, 05:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

Swallow Live Frogs and Rats Against Stomachache!
	You surely know Italians and French find a delicacy in the frog legs. You too may enjoy them. In some countries, dishes on frog legs are called "slough chicken". And southern Europe is not the only place where people consume frogs. In Latin America the frogs of the genus Leptodactylus are extremely appreciated and called "mountain chicken" and the largest frog of all, the Goliath frog from Camerun, is in d ... [read more >>]
	06 June 2007, 15:46GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia

A Human Brain Parasite That Cuts Fear Off
	We have an innate fear for snakes or spiders as have rats for cats. So much that cat urine triggers fear response in rats that have never encountered a feline even by generations. But after being infected with the brain parasite Toxoplasma gondii, however, rats turned attracted to cat urine, raising the chance to be preyed upon. But a new research revealed the amazingly mechanism by which the parasite, which also infects over 5 ... [read more >>]
	03 April 2007, 04:23GMT | (c) 2008 Softpedia