August 18, 2026 • 40 mins
Rats! For centuries, we've tried (and failed) to keep them under control, because not only are rats brave enough to swim out of toilets, they're also kind of brilliant. Find out how they foiled Pablo Escobar, why some rat owners let their pets play dentist, and why tiny trousers are their kryptonite. Featuring author and longtime friend of the show AJ Jacobs.
This episode originally aired on June 7, 2017.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what Will, what's that mango? So there's this fact
you always hear about Pablo Escobar. At the height of
his career, Pablo was bringing in eighteen billion dollars a year. God,
that's all cash. It was so much money that he
was spending twenty five hundred dollars a month just on
rubber bands.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Rubber bands, I know.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
But here's what's crazier. He and his accountant budgeted to
lose ten percent of that. I mean, Escobar expected to
lose one point eight billion dollars and the money was
going to rats. Rats, the literal rats. Like there were
so many of them scurrying around his warehouse that he
just accepted that the rodents were going to eat his profits. Okay,
(00:38):
and you think about it, right, this is Pablo Escobar,
the most ruthless kingpin in the world, right, and he's
happy to kill judges and police officers and anyone that's
threatening his business. But even he's like, there's no way
to beat rats. Let's just give them the ten percent
they deserve. That's how unstoppable rats are. I'd say, hey.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
There, podcast listeners, you're listening to part time genius. I'm
Will Pearson, and I'm joined by my good friend Mangesh
hot Ticketter, and today we're asking why have Rats out
smarted us for so long? It's a good question, and listeners,
I know it sounds disgusting, but I promise you this
is going to be fascinating. We've packed this show with fun.
We'll have writer aj Jacobs on in a little bit.
We've got a part Time Genius quiz coming up where
(01:35):
a couple of our listeners can win some very big
and very important prizes. So who do we invite to
play in this episode? Mango?
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Today we ask for librarians and only librarians, and I
think next week we're looking for accountants.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
That sounds right, yeah, and then I think it's pastry
Chef's name Kyle. Anyway, be sure to follow us part
Time Genius on all the social media thingies, you know, Twitter, Facebook,
if you want to come on and compete. So let's
dive into today's question, Ango, what do you know about Rats?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Well, the first thing I learned is that there are
some great titles out there about rats, including this book
from the eighteen fifties called The Rat It's History and
Destructive Character.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I have to say that title does not sound pro rat.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
It isn't. It's this famous book in rat studies, and
it's great because you can tell that the author, James Rodwell,
has zero love for rats. Like one of the things
he does is to challenge the reader to say the
word rat slowly, just to confirm how terrible the word sounds.
He calls it the foulest word in British zoology. You've
got to try it, ram.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
It's not a pretty sounding word, I'll give you that.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I know he's right, and it kind of sounds foul.
So I got curious and started looking up synonyms in
the thesaurus, and I realized there are no pleasant sounding
alternatives for the word rat. All right, give me some,
like you know, vermin is one, rodents, gnars, nars. It
doesn't even sound like a word, but that's it. That's
(03:01):
where the list stops. The only pleasant term I could
find for rats was track bunny. I know. That's what
subway workers call them when they see a rat on
the subway line.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
You know, trek bunnies is almost a little too cute,
I think, though, But I get what you're saying. Rats
have a terrible reputation and could use some rebranding. I
don't know, maybe like like radio Shack rebranded itself the
shack because shacks are in right now, I guess the shack.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
The fishing industry has done this with what they call
trash fish, so instead of calling it the slime head,
they renamed it the orange ruffy. Or instead of the
Patagonian toothfish, which just sounds disgusting, we've got the Chilean
sea bass. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I mean there are tons of these. I think my
favorite is how the pilshared goes by the name Cornish sartine.
I'd never eat a pilshard, but a Cornish sartine I
kind of want some, now.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
I know. I just picture it on like a tiny fork.
So that's what I'd love to do. Listeners, if you're
up for it, We're going to run a little contest
to come up with a new name for rats, something
that acknowledges the critters are gross but also deserving of admiration.
And to the top five geniuses who come up with
a rat replacement that's better than I don't know, sewer kittens,
(04:11):
we'll send you a tiny wheel of cheese.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
All right, sewer kittens. Yes, Listeners, please, write your suggestions
for rebranding the rat and we'll honor you on our
Facebook page. So just to get this out there, I'm
totally creeped out by rats, and it's because they're germ elevators.
We all know that rats carry ticks and lice with them,
and throughout history they've carried diseases into food sources and
into people's homes. But they're also just creepy to me.
(04:34):
I mean, have you ever seen these videos of how
rats squeeze their bodies under doorframes and through tiny It's just, ah,
it's so gross.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I know, that gelatinous body thing is just so disgusting.
Like octopuses can do that too, A good sized octopus
can squeeze through a hole the size of a cherry tomato.
And to be honest, as much as I hate rats,
I would be so freaked out if my apartment had
an octopus infestation, just a nest.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Of baby octopus hanging out under the saint Do you
remember that Mitch Hedberg bit about how koalas would scatter
whenever you turn on the lights in his apartment. That'd
be so much cuter than rats or octopus.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
I know, so much more adorable. Here's something I never
thought about. I was reading this book Rats by Robert Sullivan,
and Sullivan makes this analogy that if you see a
grizzly bear, you know you're in the wilderness, right, Like
you never see a grizzly bear anywhere else. But what
we don't often think about is that if you see
a rat, it's also an indicator that humans are nearby,
(05:31):
right right.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
I mean, it's no secret that rats thrive by following
human populations around. I mean, if you think about it,
there really aren't natural predators to pick them off in
the city. It's basically just rats versus humans. And just
to be clear, while there are plenty of rats out
there today, we're really focusing on the Norway rat, also
known as the brown rat.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Yeah, we should clarify why we're homing in on the
Norway rat.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Well, I mean, there are black rats too, which are
smaller and they tend to be located in warmer climates,
But the brown rats are really the common ones most
of us think about. I mean, you might have heard
of warf rats, or street rats, or barn rats or
sewer rats, or even you've heard all I've heard of
all of them keep a list. These are all just
brown rats. I mean, the same rat goes by all
these names because they're so adaptable.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah, that's right. I mean basically any rat you've been
worried about, including the ones that swim out of toilets.
I know you're looking at me skeptically, but every year
there are ten to fifteen reports of this in Portland,
Oregon alone, So you've got to imagine that a good
number of rats creep out of toilets across the US.
I mean, Norway rats are great swimmers, and of course
(06:37):
they're not really from Norway.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I guess it's just one of those things where you
want to blame another culture for the new type of grossness,
like how the Germans call the German cockroach the Russian cockroach,
and Russians call it the Prussian cockroach, and everyone's happy
to blame it on somebody else. Which, by the way,
the other part of that rat story is that the
scientists in England name the rats Norway rats, even though
they had come from Denmark.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
The Denmark part of Norway.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
That's right. I mean he might have been a little
bit bad at geography, but at the time Norway rats
had not even yet invaded Norway. That's so weird.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
The other thing Sullivan mentions as a rule of thumb
is that if you see a rat, it means there
are a ten more lurking nearby. And if you see
a rat during the day, like on the subway tracks,
then you're really in trouble because there's definitely a problem.
Like rats love to roam at night. They don't want
to be seen, but if they're out running around, it
means the population is stressed because there's too much competition
(07:29):
for food.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I never thought about it that way. Well, let's get
down to it. So we know people hate rats, and
we know they're lurking in bigger quantities than anyone sees.
But why are rats so hard to control? I mean,
one of the biggest reasons is that they populate so
darn quickly. I heard this crazy thing that if you're
in a city at any given moment, you're not that
far from rats having sex.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
I can't even think about it.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I'm not going to tell you where I heard it.
I heard it somewhere, But rats are really really good
at mating. When rats aren't eating, all they're doing is
having sex. I mean, there's no foreplay, no very white,
it's just business. In fact, it's one of the biggest
reasons rats are so hard to defeat, because a male
Norway rat can have sex with twenty different partners in
(08:12):
six hours, and the math on it's baffling. I mean,
think about this, all right. So one pair of rats
can churn out fifteen thousand descendants within a year. Each
litter then has eight to ten rats, and if the
gestation period is only twenty one days, well that's a
lot of rats that are then also eager to make
It's pretty gross, which makes you wonder why we aren't
(08:33):
all in the rat catching business. I know.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
So while we're on the topic of rat sex, I've
got to tell you about my favorite study on the subject.
There's this well regarded scientist from Cairo, Ahmed Schaffique, who's
been dead for a while now, but in nineteen ninety
three he published this experiment in European Neurology where he
tested the effects of various pant materials on the sex
drive of rats.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Let me get this straight. He made tiny pants for rats.
He did the rats went topless, of course, but he
took seventy five mil rats and had tiny trousers custom
made for each of them. One group wore one hundred
percent cotton pants, another wore wool, another wore a blend.
And these rats, they didn't get any less frisky.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
They just continued to get down except except for what,
Except for the ones dressed in polyester. I mean, this
is the amazing part. The ones outfitted in one hundred
percent polyester pants started losing their sex drive, or their confidences.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Or something else. So I don't know. Maybe it's the
chafing on their tiny rat bits that made them lose interest,
or just being forced to wear polyester. But let me
get this straight. What you're saying is all we have
to do to end our war with rats and get
them to stop reproducing is to hire an army of tailors,
have the millions of brown rats fitted for polyester trousers,
(09:49):
and then sit back and watch the population dwindle.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
That simple, Yeah, I mean, Mickey Mouse doesn't have kids,
and if Disney just swished out his fabric and let
his boys breathe a little, maybe he could start that
family his mom's always nagging him about.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Brilliant And now it's time for a dramatic reading of
America's foremost rat poet Jack Handy, from his volume Squeaky Poems,
rhymes about my rat.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Look at her whiskers, look at her toes after you've rested,
look at her nose. Thank you?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
So, mango, who do we have on the line?
Speaker 1 (10:36):
So we have two librarians, Margaret and Michael, going head
to head in today's matchup.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Now, we wanted librarians and only librarians today because librarians
are known to be word people, and we will be
playing a word game. But before we get to that one,
don't we introduce our two contestants. We have Margaret on
the line. Margaret is a librarian at MI. I t Margaret, welcome.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
You said that you actually appeared without your permission in
a calendar of librarians.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
A calendar of fictional librarians.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
But you're not fictional.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
No, I'm real, at least as far as I can tell.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Michael, you are a second contestant, and I want you
to tell us what calendars you've appeared in.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
I've never appeared on a calendar.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Well, okay, well only librarian exactly. All right, Well, Michael,
you are in Brooklyn. Tell us a little bit about
what you do.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Okay, I'm a reference librarian for the Brooklyn Public Library.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
That's awesome. And you also have a really interesting story
though as well. In addition to being a librarian, you've
been an improv comic now for what over a decade.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Yes, of thirteen years. My specialty is working at the
hospitals and nursing homes. I perform at hospitals, and I
helped run an improv workshop at a nursing home where
the people themselves do improv. Anybody's interested in in joining
or contributing, It's www dot Churban more information.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
That's very very cool, and I see, actually you do.
One of your characters is a librarian, so we are
now speaking to people that play two fictional librarians. Do
either of you have a favorite library in the world.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
I'm just supposed to pick one in terms of just
like pure not my soft saft. Best library experience I've
ever had is visiting the British Library in London where
they keep because they have like an enormous collection of
historical manuscripts. And I remember I think I went from
a letter signed by Queen Elizabeth to a copy of
(12:36):
the mac mccarta to the manuscript for Persuasion resting on
Jane Austen's writing desk, and then it's just like I
had to sit down for five minutes and collect myself.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
That's pretty great. All right, Well, Mango, what game are
our two contestants going to be playing today?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
So we're going to play a game called rat in
the middle.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
All right. So the rules of the game are simple.
Every answer is going to have the word rat in it. So,
for example, we could ask about the second Star Trek
movie because the word wrath and wrath of Khan has
the letters rat in it. We thought it would be
fun because your librarians and you're used to the world
of having to be rather quiet in your spaces, we
thought we could let you guys maybe chime in with
(13:17):
animal noises if that works for you. So, Margaret, you
want to be our you want to be our moor?
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (13:25):
All right? Michael, you want to uh, what animal would
you like to pick? You want to you wanta kaka? Okay,
all right, there we go. Yeah, that's it. That's more
like it. There we go. All right, So we're gonna
get started here. Remember you're playing for a big prize.
Whoever wins we'll get a handwritten note from us to
your mom or your boss or someone else who is
(13:46):
important to you, singing your praises. So there's a lot
on the line here. Okay, guys, Question number one, Now,
don't forget your noises, and when we hear your noise,
we will call on you and you'll have a chance
to answer. While this dinosaur had over eight hundred teeth,
it's more notable for the three horns protruding from its face.
(14:09):
I believe that was Michael with the coca. All right,
what's the answer? Michael? Well done? I love how I
emphasized the rat there. So all right. Question number two.
You ready to move, Margaret? I think this one might
be yours. Ready, This is a good one. Elvis Presley
was a practitioner of this martial art, and in fact,
(14:32):
in nineteen seventy four, all right, hold on, I'll finish
the question, he shot a documentary called The New Gladiator,
hoping it would propel it into the mainstream. What do
you think, Michael Karate? Well done? All right, answer, it
was a very logical answer. You're still not in a calendar, Michael.
(14:54):
All right, Here we go. Number three. The boys and
Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch both had a hit
song with this rat word in its title. Was that
a move? I heard? What do you think, Michael o Ra?
That's absolutely right? Okay, here we go. All right, I'm
(15:17):
going to skip to another one here.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
All right, I'm shaming and I see No, it's okay.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
This is okay. This Sasha Baron Cohen character is known
for being the sixth Oh, there we go. What do
you say, Margaret? Yes, finally, well done? All right, one
more question here, question number five. Lisa and Bart are
obsessed with this violent Tom and Jerry rip off on
the Simpsons. Ah was that a sound? Okay? Here we go,
(15:48):
go for.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
It, scratchy show.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Well done? All right, all right, mango. So what's our
final tally here?
Speaker 1 (15:54):
So we've got Michael in first place with three points
and Margaret in second place with two points. Michael, our
letter do your mom will be in the mail shortly,
and because we don't want anyone's mailbox to feel too lonely, Margaret,
we're gonna send you a potato from Potato Parcel, the
world's premiere site for sending a potato through the postal service.
Thank you both for playing. So one thing I found
(16:24):
surprising was just how new rat studies are. In fact,
I was actually thrown off by how new rats are
to the United States. Like historically they're documented in Southeast Asia,
then they move up through China, they invade Siberia, and
they march into Russia, and then they sneak onto ships
and move across the water with people. But and this
is hard to fathom, rats didn't even arrive in places
(16:46):
like Spain until eighteen hundred.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
That is pretty crazy. I mean, you imagine rats have
just always been around and part of the cultural fabric.
But it's true they only invaded states like Montana in
the nineteen twenties or so.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah, And just to drive that point home, you knows Oudubon,
the due who studied birds. Of course, he also studied
rats and did rat paintings. And according to Sullivan, when
Audubon showed his paintings to members of Congress, and we're
talking about the early eighteen hundreds here, a number of
them mistook the rats for squirrels. Like these were educated men,
many who worked farms, and they couldn't tell rats from squirrel.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
It can be tough sometimes, though, you have to admit that.
I mean, it's a little odd, but you're right. The
government only started studying the animals during World War Two,
back when we thought the Nazis might harness rodents to
spread disease all across Europe. In fact, people who wanted
to study rats before they had to do it on
the sly. So take Elmer McCollum for instance. He was
one of the pioneers at Johns Hopkins in the early
(17:41):
nineteen hundreds, but he started his research with rats at
the University of Wisconsin. But the thing is he had
to do it in secret because, and I'm quoting, the
Wisconsin state legislature would not support public expenditures on room
and board of rats pest to the Wisconsin I guess
they paid tuition. I don't know. But by the way,
it's weird.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Quest that's so weird. But what we've learned about rats
in the last seventy years is incredible, and it's basically
that they're little geniuses, like they followed us across continents.
They have this extraordinary sense of smell their homebodies, like
they really don't travel more than sixty five feet from
their nests unless they have to, in which they can
travel great distances and tread water for like three days
(18:22):
at a time. They can be dropped from heights of
fifty feet without injuring themselves. I mean that's five stories
off the ground. And they're really adaptable, like if rats
have been born in an alley that serves Indian food,
they'll have a preference for samosas and curries and spicy foods.
And they don't even eat that much food, only like
three to four ounces a day.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
I'd say that's that's pretty adaptable.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
They're also super cooperative, like in one study from twenty twelve,
rats were offered a chocolate chip treat or the opportunity
to free a fellow rat, and over and over, they
freed the rat first, and then they shared the treat.
And in studies where two rats had to press their
own buttons at the same time to release treats, they
quickly learned to cooperate. And this was the craziest to me.
(19:07):
They're really sensitive, kind of like humans, Like if one
of them get stressed, they bring that energy back to
the nest and all of the rats get stressed.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Oh that's so sweet. The other thing I was reading
about was just how suspicious they are of anything new,
which of course is why pest control is so hard.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Right, So we've established they're really reproductive unless they're sporting polyester,
and they're really smart. But why haven't humans figured out
a way to keep them in check?
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, Well, one of the funny things that keeps coming
up in history is that we kind of keep forgetting
about rats until we're actually confronted with them again. So
it's kind of an out of sight, out of mind thing.
But as soon as we do see them, we move
super quickly. Right. So, in the nineteen sixties, Ebony magazine
did this spread of housing projects in New York where
the apartments were so dilapidated and drafty that children were
(19:56):
under thick blankets trying to protect themselves from the cold.
This wasn't at night, this was during the day, and
the public was largely unmoved by the scene. But then
people from the buildings started catching rats and bringing them
into courts and showing the rats to the press. That's
when the public opinion shifted. So and the odd part
is that this happens over and over. Like in the
(20:16):
nineteen thirties, the New York Times had stories about the
atrocious rat infestation on Rikers Island. You know, this is
the prison island between Queens and the Bronx. Well, the
rat problem was so bad that the guards bought a
dog to control the rats. You know what the rats did.
They actually killed the dog. So it was that bad,
and pretty soon the officers on the island were dumping
(20:37):
poison and discussing bringing snakes onto the island to deal
with the rats. But New York totally ignored the situation
until the rats swam from the island to this super
exclusive summer community on Long Island Sound. And you know,
when these ultra rich beachgoers saw rats on their beach,
they weren't having it.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Yeah, that makes sense, but let's get zen for a second.
This is actually one of the themes that keeps coming
up in Sullivan's book, and it's that exterminators have the
sisfus like task. They're given this enormous job of trying
to control the rodent population, but as soon as they
stop seeing rats, their budgets get cut, so no one
wants to admit they exist. And it's crazy because like
(21:17):
pest controllers will work at five star hotels and when
they do that they have to work in disguise, or
when they introduce themselves at parties or on a first date,
they kind of have to tread carefully, and so you
kind of come away feeling sorry for them, but also
with this tremendous sense of respect. Like the best exterminators
they actually work as ratsars, and they're essentially archaeologists.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Archaeologists what do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Like, the rats won't travel far from home, but they
will travel deep. So a good exterminator actually sees those
city in layers. They study old maps, and so in
New York, for instance, a real student will decipher that
a new sewer system is built on top of a
system from the eighteen hundreds, and that might be built
on one from the seventeen hundreds, and that might be
over where a stream used to be. And while those
(22:00):
places aren't really functional or even accessible to humans anymore,
there's no doubt that there's a rat population that's made
a home for themselves there, and as long as they
can still get to a food source.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Well.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
The other thing I think this kind of fascinating is
how you were telling me that Sullivan almost compares catching
rats to think you said, fly fishing.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, like you kind of have to know the rhythm
of the rat population and where they're flowing, and except
that it's going to take a while, and you've got
to go in with this mentality that the rats are
going to come to you.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
I guess I'd never thought about rats being so zen.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Now for another dramatic reading from Squeaky Poems Rhymes about
My Rat by America's foremost rat poet, Jack Handy.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
What more is a man need than a Scotch and
a rat and maybe a gun to rest in his lap.
So our guest today is one of our favorite people
(23:11):
in the world, right mango.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yeah, definitely top forty.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Oh, easily top forty. So for the past several years
he's thrown himself into these crazy experiments and written about them,
whether it was reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica from A
to Z, living an entire year according to the laws
of the Old Testament, working to bring his body to
peak help through diet and exercise, or working to build
the world's largest family reunion. He's always ready to dive in.
(23:37):
Oh and he's a distant relative of Michael Jackson, which
he can tell us about Aj Jacobs, Welcome to Part
time Genius.
Speaker 5 (23:42):
Thank you guys, happy to be here. You're in my
top forty two.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Oh, thank you you.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Oh this is so flattering. That's that's really what we
were fishing for there, to be honest with you, so
to Oh wow wow, so Aj, It's it's hard to
believe it's been over a decade since he wrote. No,
it all read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica from cover to cover.
But I'm assuming you've managed to retain it all pretty
much everything.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
Yeah, maybe one or two facts in the A those
were earlier. No, Unfortunately I've forgotten. I play a good
ninety nine point eight percent, but fillo point two percent
is better than you know, I better than when I started.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
So remind us, did did you actually sit down and
read every single entry, every single page of Encyclopedia Britannica.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
I did.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
I did. I started at ac aak, which is a
type of Korean music, as I'm sure you know, and
then I ended a vivih d y w ie c
Oh wow, so I read and that's the town in Poland?
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Right again?
Speaker 5 (24:48):
Not just sure? So yes, I read the whole thing,
and I did it because my dad, when I was
a kid, he started to read the encyclopedia. He loved learning,
he loved read, but he only made us the middle
of the beach, like Bolivia or so. And I figured,
you know, why not try to finish what he began
(25:09):
and remove that black mark from our family history.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
I like that you were worried about spoiling the reading
of the Encyclopedia Britannica, so as there anybody would even
know where to find a printed encyclopedia At this point.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
I know it's true. I tell my kids and they're like,
why are you talking about that? What is mysterious encyclopedia?
Speaker 1 (25:30):
So ajay. One of the things I love reading in
your books is these stories of your wife's amusement and
also her beleaguered responses to things. And I was curious
both what project has been like the most difficult on
your family and if you've abandoned anything because it's been
too hard.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
As you know, the one about following all the rules
of the Bible as literally as possible, so I had
the Bible says no shaving, so I had this huge beard.
She didn't love that. She did not kiss me for
literally seven months. There was no physical contact. I don't
know if this is appropriate to your show, but I'll
(26:06):
just throw it out there. But the Bible says in
Leviticus that you cannot touch women during their time of months,
and if you take it the Bible really literally, you
cannot sit in a seat where a woman, a menstruating
woman has sat because the seat becomes impure. And my
wife found that offensive, so she sat in apartments.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I also love that you you actually stoned someone, right,
I did.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
So.
Speaker 5 (26:41):
I was in sort of the middle of the Aar.
I was getting very into it, so following everything, and
I looked biblical. So I had the beard and a
white robe and sandals, and I was in Central Park
in New York where and a man came up to
me and said, why are you dressed like that? And
I explained, well, I'm trying to follow all the rules
(27:01):
of the Bible, right from the Ten Commandments to sony adulters.
He says, well, I'm an adulter. Are you going to
Stone Race? And I said, well, that would be fantastic.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
So in recent years, you've been obsessed with genealogy and
proving that we're all related, and you even have a
terrific podcast, one of our favorites called Twice Removed, where
you focused on this. What have been some of the
more interesting findings from this obsession of yours?
Speaker 5 (27:29):
Yeah, this started because I got this strange email from
this guy who said, you don't know me, but I'm
your eighth cousin. And I thought he was gonna, you know,
ask here's my bank account in Nigeria, please wire ten
thousand dollars. But it turned out he's just part of
this group that are building these massive family trees that
are trying to connect everyone in the world, and the
(27:52):
biggest one is literally now one hundred and twenty million
people all connected. So I found out this is exciting.
As a I am Barack Obama's relatives. He is my
fifth grade aunt, husband's brother's wife's seventh great nephew, so
we are very close, almost brothers.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, what's up next for you? Aj? What are you?
What are you thinking about now?
Speaker 5 (28:17):
I am Actually I've got another book that I'm doing
with Ted Books, and I'm going to take something normal, uh,
something I use every day, a cup of coffee, uh,
and then I'm going to go around the world and
try to thank everyone involved in making that cup of
coffee a reality, so the vines and I hope, so,
(28:40):
I hope. So, I don't know, we'll see it. Is
I have to do that?
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Well, since you've been the subject of so many studies,
we thought it was only appropriate for you to join
us in this episode to answer some questions about rats.
So are you up for this high stake squiz? AJ?
Speaker 5 (28:59):
I am love rat.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
So what quiz are we playing with AJ? Today?
Speaker 1 (29:04):
We're playing a game called Fancy Rats. And the good
news for AJ is it's a true false quiz.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Right, Okay, here we go. I think we have five
questions for you, AJ. The first one true or false.
The fanny pack was originally invented by a rat fancier
who often used the pouts to sneak his lucky rat, Theodore,
into bowling alleys with him. Is this true or false?
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (29:29):
Man, I love it. I want it to be true
very much. And I actually was at some party recently
and like the funkiest person there was wearing a fanny pack.
So I'm hoping that we're seeing a resurgence of fanny pack.
I'm going to say that is weird enough that it's
got to be true.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
I know it's false.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
I want it to be all right. The second question,
that's right, all right, for one second question, true or false.
Before he transitioned to being a mouse and twenty twelve,
Chuck from Chuck E Cheese was formerly a rat, an
unusual mascot for a children's arcade slash pizza parlor. What
do you think truer false?
Speaker 5 (30:10):
Oh that's a good one. Oh that's a good one.
And I feel like I got to go through again
because you wouldn't do you wouldn't do two falses in
a row, and that's really tricky. Oh, you guys are
really tricky.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
All right, you're right, true, going to thank you.
Speaker 5 (30:27):
True.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
He was born a cigar chomping New Jersey rat and
initially went by the name Rick.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
There, Rick Rick the Rat. All right, good job, one
you are you are one out of two number three
truer fltse. In twenty sixteen, researchers discovered something that rat
fanciers have long known that rats laugh when tickled.
Speaker 5 (30:52):
I feel I read that somewhere not in the encyclopedia,
So I'm gonna say.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah, you're absolutely right. Yeah, they giggle and ultrasonic volume.
That's too high pitch, Friz to hear.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Good job all right? Number four truer faults in fancy
rat circles. The critter or pet that changed your mind
about rats is called a heart rat.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
And I do know this is the one of one
of the few facts that I remember about rats is
that they do get bad pr because I think a
couple of years ago, didn't they find that it was
probably Gerbils who spread the black plague.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
And rat that's true.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
So go onto something here.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
That was my heart rat. I'm gonna say, true.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Yeah, it's true. And it's odd because that phrase doesn't
work for everything, Like, no one talks about their heart
Bruce Willis. Look he's talking, is Maya.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
I think that's mine too. Actually, so you're on a
roll here, AJ, So let's see if we can finish
strong question Number five. Angelina Jolie once had a pet
rat named Harry, but gave it up when it started
chewing through too many of her curtains.
Speaker 5 (32:08):
Well, I feel I used to work with Entertainment Weekly,
and I feel I did a lot like she had
a vial of Billy Bob Thornton's blood, right, So I
don't know, I mean maybe It's like, maybe it's a
vicious rumor, but I feel I've heard that that, so
I'm going to say trip.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Wow true this.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yeah, which means which is our endless admiration.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Wow. That may have bumped him up like I had
the top thirty or so I think at this point.
So well, Aj, we can't wait to check out your
your next book, and of course everybody should check out
your podcast. Twice removed, But thanks so much for joining
us today.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
Thank you, guys. I'm huge fans. I'm so excited you're
doing this podcast and honored to be a part of
and ruin it by talking about my wife's relent situation.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
All right, so let's bring this all home. Is there
hope for humans in this war with rats?
Speaker 1 (33:21):
So it seems like there are only a few solutions
because rats have been resistant to poisons and they're really
just so clever and one is and this isn't happening
anytime soon. But we could all turn vegan because rats
are not fans of raw vegetables.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Yeah, I'd say that's not happening anytime soon.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Where we can make a move to things like metal
garbage cans. Because it all comes down to basically starving
out the rats and protecting our garbage, or by abandoning
a place and having them try to live without.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Us, or uh, what's what's the other option?
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Well, this is kind of the best hope, and that's
birth control.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
You're saying, put them on the pill?
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Yeah, like, since the polyester pants thing seems like a stretch,
this might be the best option. And there's this new
EPA approved birth control for rats. It's been made super
sweet and really fat rich because rats have even more
of a sweet tooth than us. And it basically spurs
maucipauseuseo I know, which is the cutesy term scientists use
for rat menopause. But it triggers it super early so
(34:18):
that the populations can't breed.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Poor rats have hot flashes all that.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Well, it's better than having them in your cupboards, right,
But that's the great hope for now and how we'll
finally win this battle against the grossest of foes. And
actually there's one more school of thought on this, and
that is to do nothing.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Wait, that makes no sense. We were just going through
y rats or winning this war. Why would we ignore them?
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Well, the thought is because rats are super sensitive when
we kill a rat, its peers tend to feel the
danger and start varying from their norm and when that happens,
they run into other rats and scrape it up. And
that's really where pathogens cross and diseases spread and mutabe.
So if you can get their rat colonies to stay
to themselves and sort of curb the diseases, that's kind
(35:03):
of what scientists think might be the best you can
ask for.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
That's crazy though.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Anyway, if you're interested in the subject, you should definitely
read Robert Sullivan's Rats, which formed the backbone of this episode.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
All Right, you know what time it is, Mango, Time
for the fact off, you bet it is. That's the
part of the show where we get to use the
fascinating things we learned in our research for this episode
but didn't get a chance to mention. And I kind
of have a feeling Mango intentionally held back a few
just for this big moment. So why don't you go first, Mango?
Speaker 1 (35:37):
So this one is totally gross. Back in the eighteen fifties,
gamblers in New York City used to crowd into halls
to watch and bet on the sport called ratting.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Ratting.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Yeah, like, basically a guy would show up with a big,
misshapen sack full of rats, and when the ref said go,
he'd let all of the animals just spill out, and
then they'd let a dog go after them, and people
would bet on how many rats trained dog could kill
in a short period of time. Oh so you got
to imagine the scene, right, people are betting and yelling
and this terrier, because terriers are just the best at this,
(36:09):
This terrier is going crazy will rats are running around
and it's horrible and super popular and bloody. But that's
I know, but that's not even the weird part, right.
Ratting was considered a man's sport because it was so vicious,
like a single dog could kill one hundred rats in
six minutes or something. But to expand the audience and
make it more palatable for women and children, they'd organize
(36:30):
the same thing in the afternoons, but they'd replace the
dog with a weasel.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Oh, of course, right, because that's not gross at all.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
I know. They honestly thought watching a weasel kill a
bag of rats was more appropriate for kids or something.
But anyway, that was America's favorite spectator sport until baseball
took over.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Okay, that's a gross way to start this one. Get
a good job on this one, all right. So all
this talk of rats, maybe want to go to a
place where there are no rats, And it turns out
that's what Alberta, Canada is all about. Act, if we're
being honest, it might be the number one reason to
go to Alberta. Alberta's huge, it's actually bigger than France
or any country in the EU. But it's so committed
(37:08):
to the rat free bit that they've dedicated a rat
patrol monitoring the borders for rats, and anytime there's an
infestation they bring in heavy machinery and dig out the
entire nest to eradicate it. So in big ears they'll
find maybe two or three infestations across the region, but
most hears they're not any Huh.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
That's kind of crazy. So this is a super simple one,
but it makes me happy. Did you know that male
rats are called bucks and females are called does?
Speaker 2 (37:35):
I did not know? I know.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
And the best part of it is that you can
sing the sound of music song with new lyrics like
dough or rat.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
I get the idea. That's a good one. That's a
good one. All right. Rats are subject to peer pressure.
If they see a bunch of their friend rats eating
something on appetizing, they'll join in too.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Rapper Tupac Shakur studied ballet in high school and starred
in The Nutcracker as the mouse cut I bring.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
It some Tupac. Wow, well done. You get a extra
point for that one, all right. Fancy rat owners practice
something called row dentistry. You're not gonna believe this one,
so where they'll open up their mouths and let a
rat nibble and pick food from their teeth. They're basically
outsourcing the job of flossing to their pets.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
You have to YouTube this. I'm not kidding. It's so gross.
The owners will just lean back and the rats get
really deep in their mouths. It's because rats have a
grooming behavior where they'll clean each other's teeth, and rat
parents basically consider it the ultimate compliment. So you have
to YouTube it.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Well, I cannot top that, So you win this week's
fact Off. Thank you to our listeners out there. Please
send in your suggestions for rebranding the rat and we'll
make sure you get a fun prize out of it.
And you know well, there's one last part of the
show that we need to deal with, the Part Time
Genius Award. That's right, and today I'd like to nominate
the author of the best book I read last year,
The Stench of Honolulu, of course, and also America's pre
(38:56):
eminent rat poet. That's right, mister Jack Handy. You will
be added to our Hall of Genius and we'll be
mailing you a certificate to hang on your fridge.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Congratulations, Jack Candy. And in honor of Jack Candy, why
don't we read one last poem from America's greatest rat
put to close the show.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
I think that's a fine idea. The Middle Ages were
the best of times to be a rat. You could
point to a man with plague and say I gave
him that.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Thank you. Until next time, we're Will and Mango for
Part Time Genius. Thanks again for listening to Part Time Genius.
(39:42):
Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast.
And because we're a brand new show, if you're feeling
extra generous, we'd love it if you give us a
rating on Apple Podcasts. Part Time Genius is produced by
some of our favorite geniuses. It's edited by Tristan McNeil,
theme song and audio mixing by Noel Brown. Our executive
producer is Jerry Rowland. Search team as Gabe Lucier, Lucas Adams,
Autumn white Field, Modrono, Austin Thompson and Meg Robbins. Jason
(40:05):
Hoak as our chief cheerleader
Guess what Will, what's that mango? So there's this fact
you always hear about Pablo Escobar. At the height of
his career, Pablo was bringing in eighteen billion dollars a year. God,
that's all cash. It was so much money that he
was spending twenty five hundred dollars a month just on
rubber bands.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Rubber bands, I know.
Speaker 1 (00:17):
But here's what's crazier. He and his accountant budgeted to
lose ten percent of that. I mean, Escobar expected to
lose one point eight billion dollars and the money was
going to rats. Rats, the literal rats. Like there were
so many of them scurrying around his warehouse that he
just accepted that the rodents were going to eat his profits. Okay,
(00:38):
and you think about it, right, this is Pablo Escobar,
the most ruthless kingpin in the world, right, and he's
happy to kill judges and police officers and anyone that's
threatening his business. But even he's like, there's no way
to beat rats. Let's just give them the ten percent
they deserve. That's how unstoppable rats are. I'd say, hey.
Speaker 2 (01:12):
There, podcast listeners, you're listening to part time genius. I'm
Will Pearson, and I'm joined by my good friend Mangesh
hot Ticketter, and today we're asking why have Rats out
smarted us for so long? It's a good question, and listeners,
I know it sounds disgusting, but I promise you this
is going to be fascinating. We've packed this show with fun.
We'll have writer aj Jacobs on in a little bit.
We've got a part Time Genius quiz coming up where
(01:35):
a couple of our listeners can win some very big
and very important prizes. So who do we invite to
play in this episode? Mango?
Speaker 1 (01:41):
Today we ask for librarians and only librarians, and I
think next week we're looking for accountants.
Speaker 2 (01:46):
That sounds right, yeah, and then I think it's pastry
Chef's name Kyle. Anyway, be sure to follow us part
Time Genius on all the social media thingies, you know, Twitter, Facebook,
if you want to come on and compete. So let's
dive into today's question, Ango, what do you know about Rats?
Speaker 1 (02:02):
Well, the first thing I learned is that there are
some great titles out there about rats, including this book
from the eighteen fifties called The Rat It's History and
Destructive Character.
Speaker 2 (02:12):
I have to say that title does not sound pro rat.
Speaker 1 (02:15):
It isn't. It's this famous book in rat studies, and
it's great because you can tell that the author, James Rodwell,
has zero love for rats. Like one of the things
he does is to challenge the reader to say the
word rat slowly, just to confirm how terrible the word sounds.
He calls it the foulest word in British zoology. You've
got to try it, ram.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
It's not a pretty sounding word, I'll give you that.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
I know he's right, and it kind of sounds foul.
So I got curious and started looking up synonyms in
the thesaurus, and I realized there are no pleasant sounding
alternatives for the word rat. All right, give me some,
like you know, vermin is one, rodents, gnars, nars. It
doesn't even sound like a word, but that's it. That's
(03:01):
where the list stops. The only pleasant term I could
find for rats was track bunny. I know. That's what
subway workers call them when they see a rat on
the subway line.
Speaker 2 (03:11):
You know, trek bunnies is almost a little too cute,
I think, though, But I get what you're saying. Rats
have a terrible reputation and could use some rebranding. I
don't know, maybe like like radio Shack rebranded itself the
shack because shacks are in right now, I guess the shack.
Speaker 3 (03:28):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:28):
The fishing industry has done this with what they call
trash fish, so instead of calling it the slime head,
they renamed it the orange ruffy. Or instead of the
Patagonian toothfish, which just sounds disgusting, we've got the Chilean
sea bass. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (03:41):
I mean there are tons of these. I think my
favorite is how the pilshared goes by the name Cornish sartine.
I'd never eat a pilshard, but a Cornish sartine I
kind of want some, now.
Speaker 1 (03:50):
I know. I just picture it on like a tiny fork.
So that's what I'd love to do. Listeners, if you're
up for it, We're going to run a little contest
to come up with a new name for rats, something
that acknowledges the critters are gross but also deserving of admiration.
And to the top five geniuses who come up with
a rat replacement that's better than I don't know, sewer kittens,
(04:11):
we'll send you a tiny wheel of cheese.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
All right, sewer kittens. Yes, Listeners, please, write your suggestions
for rebranding the rat and we'll honor you on our
Facebook page. So just to get this out there, I'm
totally creeped out by rats, and it's because they're germ elevators.
We all know that rats carry ticks and lice with them,
and throughout history they've carried diseases into food sources and
into people's homes. But they're also just creepy to me.
(04:34):
I mean, have you ever seen these videos of how
rats squeeze their bodies under doorframes and through tiny It's just, ah,
it's so gross.
Speaker 1 (04:42):
I know, that gelatinous body thing is just so disgusting.
Like octopuses can do that too, A good sized octopus
can squeeze through a hole the size of a cherry tomato.
And to be honest, as much as I hate rats,
I would be so freaked out if my apartment had
an octopus infestation, just a nest.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Of baby octopus hanging out under the saint Do you
remember that Mitch Hedberg bit about how koalas would scatter
whenever you turn on the lights in his apartment. That'd
be so much cuter than rats or octopus.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
I know, so much more adorable. Here's something I never
thought about. I was reading this book Rats by Robert Sullivan,
and Sullivan makes this analogy that if you see a
grizzly bear, you know you're in the wilderness, right, Like
you never see a grizzly bear anywhere else. But what
we don't often think about is that if you see
a rat, it's also an indicator that humans are nearby,
(05:31):
right right.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
I mean, it's no secret that rats thrive by following
human populations around. I mean, if you think about it,
there really aren't natural predators to pick them off in
the city. It's basically just rats versus humans. And just
to be clear, while there are plenty of rats out
there today, we're really focusing on the Norway rat, also
known as the brown rat.
Speaker 1 (05:50):
Yeah, we should clarify why we're homing in on the
Norway rat.
Speaker 2 (05:54):
Well, I mean, there are black rats too, which are
smaller and they tend to be located in warmer climates,
But the brown rats are really the common ones most
of us think about. I mean, you might have heard
of warf rats, or street rats, or barn rats or
sewer rats, or even you've heard all I've heard of
all of them keep a list. These are all just
brown rats. I mean, the same rat goes by all
these names because they're so adaptable.
Speaker 1 (06:15):
Yeah, that's right. I mean basically any rat you've been
worried about, including the ones that swim out of toilets.
I know you're looking at me skeptically, but every year
there are ten to fifteen reports of this in Portland,
Oregon alone, So you've got to imagine that a good
number of rats creep out of toilets across the US.
I mean, Norway rats are great swimmers, and of course
(06:37):
they're not really from Norway.
Speaker 4 (06:38):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:38):
I guess it's just one of those things where you
want to blame another culture for the new type of grossness,
like how the Germans call the German cockroach the Russian cockroach,
and Russians call it the Prussian cockroach, and everyone's happy
to blame it on somebody else. Which, by the way,
the other part of that rat story is that the
scientists in England name the rats Norway rats, even though
they had come from Denmark.
Speaker 1 (07:00):
The Denmark part of Norway.
Speaker 2 (07:01):
That's right. I mean he might have been a little
bit bad at geography, but at the time Norway rats
had not even yet invaded Norway. That's so weird.
Speaker 1 (07:08):
The other thing Sullivan mentions as a rule of thumb
is that if you see a rat, it means there
are a ten more lurking nearby. And if you see
a rat during the day, like on the subway tracks,
then you're really in trouble because there's definitely a problem.
Like rats love to roam at night. They don't want
to be seen, but if they're out running around, it
means the population is stressed because there's too much competition
(07:29):
for food.
Speaker 2 (07:30):
I never thought about it that way. Well, let's get
down to it. So we know people hate rats, and
we know they're lurking in bigger quantities than anyone sees.
But why are rats so hard to control? I mean,
one of the biggest reasons is that they populate so
darn quickly. I heard this crazy thing that if you're
in a city at any given moment, you're not that
far from rats having sex.
Speaker 1 (07:51):
I can't even think about it.
Speaker 2 (07:52):
I'm not going to tell you where I heard it.
I heard it somewhere, But rats are really really good
at mating. When rats aren't eating, all they're doing is
having sex. I mean, there's no foreplay, no very white,
it's just business. In fact, it's one of the biggest
reasons rats are so hard to defeat, because a male
Norway rat can have sex with twenty different partners in
(08:12):
six hours, and the math on it's baffling. I mean,
think about this, all right. So one pair of rats
can churn out fifteen thousand descendants within a year. Each
litter then has eight to ten rats, and if the
gestation period is only twenty one days, well that's a
lot of rats that are then also eager to make
It's pretty gross, which makes you wonder why we aren't
(08:33):
all in the rat catching business. I know.
Speaker 1 (08:35):
So while we're on the topic of rat sex, I've
got to tell you about my favorite study on the subject.
There's this well regarded scientist from Cairo, Ahmed Schaffique, who's
been dead for a while now, but in nineteen ninety
three he published this experiment in European Neurology where he
tested the effects of various pant materials on the sex
drive of rats.
Speaker 2 (08:55):
Let me get this straight. He made tiny pants for rats.
He did the rats went topless, of course, but he
took seventy five mil rats and had tiny trousers custom
made for each of them. One group wore one hundred
percent cotton pants, another wore wool, another wore a blend.
And these rats, they didn't get any less frisky.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
They just continued to get down except except for what,
Except for the ones dressed in polyester. I mean, this
is the amazing part. The ones outfitted in one hundred
percent polyester pants started losing their sex drive, or their confidences.
Speaker 2 (09:29):
Or something else. So I don't know. Maybe it's the
chafing on their tiny rat bits that made them lose interest,
or just being forced to wear polyester. But let me
get this straight. What you're saying is all we have
to do to end our war with rats and get
them to stop reproducing is to hire an army of tailors,
have the millions of brown rats fitted for polyester trousers,
(09:49):
and then sit back and watch the population dwindle.
Speaker 1 (09:51):
That simple, Yeah, I mean, Mickey Mouse doesn't have kids,
and if Disney just swished out his fabric and let
his boys breathe a little, maybe he could start that
family his mom's always nagging him about.
Speaker 2 (10:02):
Brilliant And now it's time for a dramatic reading of
America's foremost rat poet Jack Handy, from his volume Squeaky Poems,
rhymes about my rat.
Speaker 1 (10:17):
Look at her whiskers, look at her toes after you've rested,
look at her nose. Thank you?
Speaker 2 (10:34):
So, mango, who do we have on the line?
Speaker 1 (10:36):
So we have two librarians, Margaret and Michael, going head
to head in today's matchup.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Now, we wanted librarians and only librarians today because librarians
are known to be word people, and we will be
playing a word game. But before we get to that one,
don't we introduce our two contestants. We have Margaret on
the line. Margaret is a librarian at MI. I t Margaret, welcome.
Speaker 3 (10:59):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
You said that you actually appeared without your permission in
a calendar of librarians.
Speaker 3 (11:07):
A calendar of fictional librarians.
Speaker 2 (11:09):
But you're not fictional.
Speaker 3 (11:11):
No, I'm real, at least as far as I can tell.
Speaker 2 (11:13):
Michael, you are a second contestant, and I want you
to tell us what calendars you've appeared in.
Speaker 4 (11:17):
I've never appeared on a calendar.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Well, okay, well only librarian exactly. All right, Well, Michael,
you are in Brooklyn. Tell us a little bit about
what you do.
Speaker 4 (11:27):
Okay, I'm a reference librarian for the Brooklyn Public Library.
Speaker 2 (11:31):
That's awesome. And you also have a really interesting story
though as well. In addition to being a librarian, you've
been an improv comic now for what over a decade.
Speaker 4 (11:41):
Yes, of thirteen years. My specialty is working at the
hospitals and nursing homes. I perform at hospitals, and I
helped run an improv workshop at a nursing home where
the people themselves do improv. Anybody's interested in in joining
or contributing, It's www dot Churban more information.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
That's very very cool, and I see, actually you do.
One of your characters is a librarian, so we are
now speaking to people that play two fictional librarians. Do
either of you have a favorite library in the world.
Speaker 3 (12:15):
I'm just supposed to pick one in terms of just
like pure not my soft saft. Best library experience I've
ever had is visiting the British Library in London where
they keep because they have like an enormous collection of
historical manuscripts. And I remember I think I went from
a letter signed by Queen Elizabeth to a copy of
(12:36):
the mac mccarta to the manuscript for Persuasion resting on
Jane Austen's writing desk, and then it's just like I
had to sit down for five minutes and collect myself.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
That's pretty great. All right, Well, Mango, what game are
our two contestants going to be playing today?
Speaker 1 (12:52):
So we're going to play a game called rat in
the middle.
Speaker 2 (12:55):
All right. So the rules of the game are simple.
Every answer is going to have the word rat in it. So,
for example, we could ask about the second Star Trek
movie because the word wrath and wrath of Khan has
the letters rat in it. We thought it would be
fun because your librarians and you're used to the world
of having to be rather quiet in your spaces, we
thought we could let you guys maybe chime in with
(13:17):
animal noises if that works for you. So, Margaret, you
want to be our you want to be our moor?
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Okay?
Speaker 2 (13:25):
All right? Michael, you want to uh, what animal would
you like to pick? You want to you wanta kaka? Okay,
all right, there we go. Yeah, that's it. That's more
like it. There we go. All right, So we're gonna
get started here. Remember you're playing for a big prize.
Whoever wins we'll get a handwritten note from us to
your mom or your boss or someone else who is
(13:46):
important to you, singing your praises. So there's a lot
on the line here. Okay, guys, Question number one, Now,
don't forget your noises, and when we hear your noise,
we will call on you and you'll have a chance
to answer. While this dinosaur had over eight hundred teeth,
it's more notable for the three horns protruding from its face.
(14:09):
I believe that was Michael with the coca. All right,
what's the answer? Michael? Well done? I love how I
emphasized the rat there. So all right. Question number two.
You ready to move, Margaret? I think this one might
be yours. Ready, This is a good one. Elvis Presley
was a practitioner of this martial art, and in fact,
(14:32):
in nineteen seventy four, all right, hold on, I'll finish
the question, he shot a documentary called The New Gladiator,
hoping it would propel it into the mainstream. What do
you think, Michael Karate? Well done? All right, answer, it
was a very logical answer. You're still not in a calendar, Michael.
(14:54):
All right, Here we go. Number three. The boys and
Marky Mark and The Funky Bunch both had a hit
song with this rat word in its title. Was that
a move? I heard? What do you think, Michael o Ra?
That's absolutely right? Okay, here we go. All right, I'm
(15:17):
going to skip to another one here.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
All right, I'm shaming and I see No, it's okay.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
This is okay. This Sasha Baron Cohen character is known
for being the sixth Oh, there we go. What do
you say, Margaret? Yes, finally, well done? All right, one
more question here, question number five. Lisa and Bart are
obsessed with this violent Tom and Jerry rip off on
the Simpsons. Ah was that a sound? Okay? Here we go,
(15:48):
go for.
Speaker 4 (15:48):
It, scratchy show.
Speaker 2 (15:50):
Well done? All right, all right, mango. So what's our
final tally here?
Speaker 1 (15:54):
So we've got Michael in first place with three points
and Margaret in second place with two points. Michael, our
letter do your mom will be in the mail shortly,
and because we don't want anyone's mailbox to feel too lonely, Margaret,
we're gonna send you a potato from Potato Parcel, the
world's premiere site for sending a potato through the postal service.
Thank you both for playing. So one thing I found
(16:24):
surprising was just how new rat studies are. In fact,
I was actually thrown off by how new rats are
to the United States. Like historically they're documented in Southeast Asia,
then they move up through China, they invade Siberia, and
they march into Russia, and then they sneak onto ships
and move across the water with people. But and this
is hard to fathom, rats didn't even arrive in places
(16:46):
like Spain until eighteen hundred.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
That is pretty crazy. I mean, you imagine rats have
just always been around and part of the cultural fabric.
But it's true they only invaded states like Montana in
the nineteen twenties or so.
Speaker 1 (16:56):
Yeah, And just to drive that point home, you knows Oudubon,
the due who studied birds. Of course, he also studied
rats and did rat paintings. And according to Sullivan, when
Audubon showed his paintings to members of Congress, and we're
talking about the early eighteen hundreds here, a number of
them mistook the rats for squirrels. Like these were educated men,
many who worked farms, and they couldn't tell rats from squirrel.
Speaker 2 (17:19):
It can be tough sometimes, though, you have to admit that.
I mean, it's a little odd, but you're right. The
government only started studying the animals during World War Two,
back when we thought the Nazis might harness rodents to
spread disease all across Europe. In fact, people who wanted
to study rats before they had to do it on
the sly. So take Elmer McCollum for instance. He was
one of the pioneers at Johns Hopkins in the early
(17:41):
nineteen hundreds, but he started his research with rats at
the University of Wisconsin. But the thing is he had
to do it in secret because, and I'm quoting, the
Wisconsin state legislature would not support public expenditures on room
and board of rats pest to the Wisconsin I guess
they paid tuition. I don't know. But by the way,
it's weird.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
Quest that's so weird. But what we've learned about rats
in the last seventy years is incredible, and it's basically
that they're little geniuses, like they followed us across continents.
They have this extraordinary sense of smell their homebodies, like
they really don't travel more than sixty five feet from
their nests unless they have to, in which they can
travel great distances and tread water for like three days
(18:22):
at a time. They can be dropped from heights of
fifty feet without injuring themselves. I mean that's five stories
off the ground. And they're really adaptable, like if rats
have been born in an alley that serves Indian food,
they'll have a preference for samosas and curries and spicy foods.
And they don't even eat that much food, only like
three to four ounces a day.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
I'd say that's that's pretty adaptable.
Speaker 1 (18:44):
They're also super cooperative, like in one study from twenty twelve,
rats were offered a chocolate chip treat or the opportunity
to free a fellow rat, and over and over, they
freed the rat first, and then they shared the treat.
And in studies where two rats had to press their
own buttons at the same time to release treats, they
quickly learned to cooperate. And this was the craziest to me.
(19:07):
They're really sensitive, kind of like humans, Like if one
of them get stressed, they bring that energy back to
the nest and all of the rats get stressed.
Speaker 2 (19:16):
Oh that's so sweet. The other thing I was reading
about was just how suspicious they are of anything new,
which of course is why pest control is so hard.
Speaker 1 (19:24):
Right, So we've established they're really reproductive unless they're sporting polyester,
and they're really smart. But why haven't humans figured out
a way to keep them in check?
Speaker 4 (19:34):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (19:34):
Yeah, Well, one of the funny things that keeps coming
up in history is that we kind of keep forgetting
about rats until we're actually confronted with them again. So
it's kind of an out of sight, out of mind thing.
But as soon as we do see them, we move
super quickly. Right. So, in the nineteen sixties, Ebony magazine
did this spread of housing projects in New York where
the apartments were so dilapidated and drafty that children were
(19:56):
under thick blankets trying to protect themselves from the cold.
This wasn't at night, this was during the day, and
the public was largely unmoved by the scene. But then
people from the buildings started catching rats and bringing them
into courts and showing the rats to the press. That's
when the public opinion shifted. So and the odd part
is that this happens over and over. Like in the
(20:16):
nineteen thirties, the New York Times had stories about the
atrocious rat infestation on Rikers Island. You know, this is
the prison island between Queens and the Bronx. Well, the
rat problem was so bad that the guards bought a
dog to control the rats. You know what the rats did.
They actually killed the dog. So it was that bad,
and pretty soon the officers on the island were dumping
(20:37):
poison and discussing bringing snakes onto the island to deal
with the rats. But New York totally ignored the situation
until the rats swam from the island to this super
exclusive summer community on Long Island Sound. And you know,
when these ultra rich beachgoers saw rats on their beach,
they weren't having it.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
Yeah, that makes sense, but let's get zen for a second.
This is actually one of the themes that keeps coming
up in Sullivan's book, and it's that exterminators have the
sisfus like task. They're given this enormous job of trying
to control the rodent population, but as soon as they
stop seeing rats, their budgets get cut, so no one
wants to admit they exist. And it's crazy because like
(21:17):
pest controllers will work at five star hotels and when
they do that they have to work in disguise, or
when they introduce themselves at parties or on a first date,
they kind of have to tread carefully, and so you
kind of come away feeling sorry for them, but also
with this tremendous sense of respect. Like the best exterminators
they actually work as ratsars, and they're essentially archaeologists.
Speaker 2 (21:38):
Archaeologists what do you mean by that?
Speaker 1 (21:40):
Like, the rats won't travel far from home, but they
will travel deep. So a good exterminator actually sees those
city in layers. They study old maps, and so in
New York, for instance, a real student will decipher that
a new sewer system is built on top of a
system from the eighteen hundreds, and that might be built
on one from the seventeen hundreds, and that might be
over where a stream used to be. And while those
(22:00):
places aren't really functional or even accessible to humans anymore,
there's no doubt that there's a rat population that's made
a home for themselves there, and as long as they
can still get to a food source.
Speaker 4 (22:11):
Well.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
The other thing I think this kind of fascinating is
how you were telling me that Sullivan almost compares catching
rats to think you said, fly fishing.
Speaker 1 (22:18):
Yeah, like you kind of have to know the rhythm
of the rat population and where they're flowing, and except
that it's going to take a while, and you've got
to go in with this mentality that the rats are
going to come to you.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
I guess I'd never thought about rats being so zen.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (22:38):
Now for another dramatic reading from Squeaky Poems Rhymes about
My Rat by America's foremost rat poet, Jack Handy.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
What more is a man need than a Scotch and
a rat and maybe a gun to rest in his lap.
So our guest today is one of our favorite people
(23:11):
in the world, right mango.
Speaker 1 (23:13):
Yeah, definitely top forty.
Speaker 2 (23:14):
Oh, easily top forty. So for the past several years
he's thrown himself into these crazy experiments and written about them,
whether it was reading the entire Encyclopedia Britannica from A
to Z, living an entire year according to the laws
of the Old Testament, working to bring his body to
peak help through diet and exercise, or working to build
the world's largest family reunion. He's always ready to dive in.
(23:37):
Oh and he's a distant relative of Michael Jackson, which
he can tell us about Aj Jacobs, Welcome to Part
time Genius.
Speaker 5 (23:42):
Thank you guys, happy to be here. You're in my
top forty two.
Speaker 1 (23:45):
Oh, thank you you.
Speaker 2 (23:47):
Oh this is so flattering. That's that's really what we
were fishing for there, to be honest with you, so
to Oh wow wow, so Aj, It's it's hard to
believe it's been over a decade since he wrote. No,
it all read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica from cover to cover.
But I'm assuming you've managed to retain it all pretty
much everything.
Speaker 5 (24:07):
Yeah, maybe one or two facts in the A those
were earlier. No, Unfortunately I've forgotten. I play a good
ninety nine point eight percent, but fillo point two percent
is better than you know, I better than when I started.
Speaker 2 (24:23):
So remind us, did did you actually sit down and
read every single entry, every single page of Encyclopedia Britannica.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
I did.
Speaker 5 (24:32):
I did. I started at ac aak, which is a
type of Korean music, as I'm sure you know, and
then I ended a vivih d y w ie c
Oh wow, so I read and that's the town in Poland?
Speaker 1 (24:47):
Right again?
Speaker 5 (24:48):
Not just sure? So yes, I read the whole thing,
and I did it because my dad, when I was
a kid, he started to read the encyclopedia. He loved learning,
he loved read, but he only made us the middle
of the beach, like Bolivia or so. And I figured,
you know, why not try to finish what he began
(25:09):
and remove that black mark from our family history.
Speaker 2 (25:13):
I like that you were worried about spoiling the reading
of the Encyclopedia Britannica, so as there anybody would even
know where to find a printed encyclopedia At this point.
Speaker 5 (25:23):
I know it's true. I tell my kids and they're like,
why are you talking about that? What is mysterious encyclopedia?
Speaker 1 (25:30):
So ajay. One of the things I love reading in
your books is these stories of your wife's amusement and
also her beleaguered responses to things. And I was curious
both what project has been like the most difficult on
your family and if you've abandoned anything because it's been
too hard.
Speaker 5 (25:45):
As you know, the one about following all the rules
of the Bible as literally as possible, so I had
the Bible says no shaving, so I had this huge beard.
She didn't love that. She did not kiss me for
literally seven months. There was no physical contact. I don't
know if this is appropriate to your show, but I'll
(26:06):
just throw it out there. But the Bible says in
Leviticus that you cannot touch women during their time of months,
and if you take it the Bible really literally, you
cannot sit in a seat where a woman, a menstruating
woman has sat because the seat becomes impure. And my
wife found that offensive, so she sat in apartments.
Speaker 1 (26:36):
I also love that you you actually stoned someone, right,
I did.
Speaker 4 (26:41):
So.
Speaker 5 (26:41):
I was in sort of the middle of the Aar.
I was getting very into it, so following everything, and
I looked biblical. So I had the beard and a
white robe and sandals, and I was in Central Park
in New York where and a man came up to
me and said, why are you dressed like that? And
I explained, well, I'm trying to follow all the rules
(27:01):
of the Bible, right from the Ten Commandments to sony adulters.
He says, well, I'm an adulter. Are you going to
Stone Race? And I said, well, that would be fantastic.
Speaker 2 (27:15):
So in recent years, you've been obsessed with genealogy and
proving that we're all related, and you even have a
terrific podcast, one of our favorites called Twice Removed, where
you focused on this. What have been some of the
more interesting findings from this obsession of yours?
Speaker 5 (27:29):
Yeah, this started because I got this strange email from
this guy who said, you don't know me, but I'm
your eighth cousin. And I thought he was gonna, you know,
ask here's my bank account in Nigeria, please wire ten
thousand dollars. But it turned out he's just part of
this group that are building these massive family trees that
are trying to connect everyone in the world, and the
(27:52):
biggest one is literally now one hundred and twenty million
people all connected. So I found out this is exciting.
As a I am Barack Obama's relatives. He is my
fifth grade aunt, husband's brother's wife's seventh great nephew, so
we are very close, almost brothers.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Yeah, what's up next for you? Aj? What are you?
What are you thinking about now?
Speaker 5 (28:17):
I am Actually I've got another book that I'm doing
with Ted Books, and I'm going to take something normal, uh,
something I use every day, a cup of coffee, uh,
and then I'm going to go around the world and
try to thank everyone involved in making that cup of
coffee a reality, so the vines and I hope, so,
(28:40):
I hope. So, I don't know, we'll see it. Is
I have to do that?
Speaker 2 (28:47):
Well, since you've been the subject of so many studies,
we thought it was only appropriate for you to join
us in this episode to answer some questions about rats.
So are you up for this high stake squiz? AJ?
Speaker 5 (28:59):
I am love rat.
Speaker 2 (29:02):
So what quiz are we playing with AJ? Today?
Speaker 1 (29:04):
We're playing a game called Fancy Rats. And the good
news for AJ is it's a true false quiz.
Speaker 2 (29:10):
Right, Okay, here we go. I think we have five
questions for you, AJ. The first one true or false.
The fanny pack was originally invented by a rat fancier
who often used the pouts to sneak his lucky rat, Theodore,
into bowling alleys with him. Is this true or false?
Speaker 4 (29:29):
Oh?
Speaker 5 (29:29):
Man, I love it. I want it to be true
very much. And I actually was at some party recently
and like the funkiest person there was wearing a fanny pack.
So I'm hoping that we're seeing a resurgence of fanny pack.
I'm going to say that is weird enough that it's
got to be true.
Speaker 1 (29:48):
I know it's false.
Speaker 2 (29:49):
I want it to be all right. The second question,
that's right, all right, for one second question, true or false.
Before he transitioned to being a mouse and twenty twelve,
Chuck from Chuck E Cheese was formerly a rat, an
unusual mascot for a children's arcade slash pizza parlor. What
do you think truer false?
Speaker 5 (30:10):
Oh that's a good one. Oh that's a good one.
And I feel like I got to go through again
because you wouldn't do you wouldn't do two falses in
a row, and that's really tricky. Oh, you guys are
really tricky.
Speaker 1 (30:23):
All right, you're right, true, going to thank you.
Speaker 5 (30:27):
True.
Speaker 1 (30:28):
He was born a cigar chomping New Jersey rat and
initially went by the name Rick.
Speaker 2 (30:36):
There, Rick Rick the Rat. All right, good job, one
you are you are one out of two number three
truer fltse. In twenty sixteen, researchers discovered something that rat
fanciers have long known that rats laugh when tickled.
Speaker 5 (30:52):
I feel I read that somewhere not in the encyclopedia,
So I'm gonna say.
Speaker 1 (30:57):
Yeah, you're absolutely right. Yeah, they giggle and ultrasonic volume.
That's too high pitch, Friz to hear.
Speaker 2 (31:04):
Good job all right? Number four truer faults in fancy
rat circles. The critter or pet that changed your mind
about rats is called a heart rat.
Speaker 5 (31:16):
And I do know this is the one of one
of the few facts that I remember about rats is
that they do get bad pr because I think a
couple of years ago, didn't they find that it was
probably Gerbils who spread the black plague.
Speaker 1 (31:30):
And rat that's true.
Speaker 2 (31:33):
So go onto something here.
Speaker 5 (31:35):
That was my heart rat. I'm gonna say, true.
Speaker 1 (31:40):
Yeah, it's true. And it's odd because that phrase doesn't
work for everything, Like, no one talks about their heart
Bruce Willis. Look he's talking, is Maya.
Speaker 2 (31:51):
I think that's mine too. Actually, so you're on a
roll here, AJ, So let's see if we can finish
strong question Number five. Angelina Jolie once had a pet
rat named Harry, but gave it up when it started
chewing through too many of her curtains.
Speaker 5 (32:08):
Well, I feel I used to work with Entertainment Weekly,
and I feel I did a lot like she had
a vial of Billy Bob Thornton's blood, right, So I
don't know, I mean maybe It's like, maybe it's a
vicious rumor, but I feel I've heard that that, so
I'm going to say trip.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Wow true this.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Yeah, which means which is our endless admiration.
Speaker 2 (32:35):
Wow. That may have bumped him up like I had
the top thirty or so I think at this point.
So well, Aj, we can't wait to check out your
your next book, and of course everybody should check out
your podcast. Twice removed, But thanks so much for joining
us today.
Speaker 5 (32:49):
Thank you, guys. I'm huge fans. I'm so excited you're
doing this podcast and honored to be a part of
and ruin it by talking about my wife's relent situation.
Speaker 2 (33:17):
All right, so let's bring this all home. Is there
hope for humans in this war with rats?
Speaker 1 (33:21):
So it seems like there are only a few solutions
because rats have been resistant to poisons and they're really
just so clever and one is and this isn't happening
anytime soon. But we could all turn vegan because rats
are not fans of raw vegetables.
Speaker 2 (33:35):
Yeah, I'd say that's not happening anytime soon.
Speaker 1 (33:37):
Where we can make a move to things like metal
garbage cans. Because it all comes down to basically starving
out the rats and protecting our garbage, or by abandoning
a place and having them try to live without.
Speaker 2 (33:47):
Us, or uh, what's what's the other option?
Speaker 1 (33:50):
Well, this is kind of the best hope, and that's
birth control.
Speaker 2 (33:54):
You're saying, put them on the pill?
Speaker 1 (33:55):
Yeah, like, since the polyester pants thing seems like a stretch,
this might be the best option. And there's this new
EPA approved birth control for rats. It's been made super
sweet and really fat rich because rats have even more
of a sweet tooth than us. And it basically spurs
maucipauseuseo I know, which is the cutesy term scientists use
for rat menopause. But it triggers it super early so
(34:18):
that the populations can't breed.
Speaker 2 (34:20):
Poor rats have hot flashes all that.
Speaker 1 (34:23):
Well, it's better than having them in your cupboards, right,
But that's the great hope for now and how we'll
finally win this battle against the grossest of foes. And
actually there's one more school of thought on this, and
that is to do nothing.
Speaker 2 (34:36):
Wait, that makes no sense. We were just going through
y rats or winning this war. Why would we ignore them?
Speaker 1 (34:42):
Well, the thought is because rats are super sensitive when
we kill a rat, its peers tend to feel the
danger and start varying from their norm and when that happens,
they run into other rats and scrape it up. And
that's really where pathogens cross and diseases spread and mutabe.
So if you can get their rat colonies to stay
to themselves and sort of curb the diseases, that's kind
(35:03):
of what scientists think might be the best you can
ask for.
Speaker 2 (35:06):
That's crazy though.
Speaker 1 (35:06):
Anyway, if you're interested in the subject, you should definitely
read Robert Sullivan's Rats, which formed the backbone of this episode.
Speaker 2 (35:20):
All Right, you know what time it is, Mango, Time
for the fact off, you bet it is. That's the
part of the show where we get to use the
fascinating things we learned in our research for this episode
but didn't get a chance to mention. And I kind
of have a feeling Mango intentionally held back a few
just for this big moment. So why don't you go first, Mango?
Speaker 1 (35:37):
So this one is totally gross. Back in the eighteen fifties,
gamblers in New York City used to crowd into halls
to watch and bet on the sport called ratting.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Ratting.
Speaker 1 (35:46):
Yeah, like, basically a guy would show up with a big,
misshapen sack full of rats, and when the ref said go,
he'd let all of the animals just spill out, and
then they'd let a dog go after them, and people
would bet on how many rats trained dog could kill
in a short period of time. Oh so you got
to imagine the scene, right, people are betting and yelling
and this terrier, because terriers are just the best at this,
(36:09):
This terrier is going crazy will rats are running around
and it's horrible and super popular and bloody. But that's
I know, but that's not even the weird part, right.
Ratting was considered a man's sport because it was so vicious,
like a single dog could kill one hundred rats in
six minutes or something. But to expand the audience and
make it more palatable for women and children, they'd organize
(36:30):
the same thing in the afternoons, but they'd replace the
dog with a weasel.
Speaker 2 (36:34):
Oh, of course, right, because that's not gross at all.
Speaker 1 (36:37):
I know. They honestly thought watching a weasel kill a
bag of rats was more appropriate for kids or something.
But anyway, that was America's favorite spectator sport until baseball
took over.
Speaker 2 (36:48):
Okay, that's a gross way to start this one. Get
a good job on this one, all right. So all
this talk of rats, maybe want to go to a
place where there are no rats, And it turns out
that's what Alberta, Canada is all about. Act, if we're
being honest, it might be the number one reason to
go to Alberta. Alberta's huge, it's actually bigger than France
or any country in the EU. But it's so committed
(37:08):
to the rat free bit that they've dedicated a rat
patrol monitoring the borders for rats, and anytime there's an
infestation they bring in heavy machinery and dig out the
entire nest to eradicate it. So in big ears they'll
find maybe two or three infestations across the region, but
most hears they're not any Huh.
Speaker 1 (37:26):
That's kind of crazy. So this is a super simple one,
but it makes me happy. Did you know that male
rats are called bucks and females are called does?
Speaker 2 (37:35):
I did not know? I know.
Speaker 1 (37:36):
And the best part of it is that you can
sing the sound of music song with new lyrics like
dough or rat.
Speaker 2 (37:44):
I get the idea. That's a good one. That's a
good one. All right. Rats are subject to peer pressure.
If they see a bunch of their friend rats eating
something on appetizing, they'll join in too.
Speaker 1 (37:53):
Rapper Tupac Shakur studied ballet in high school and starred
in The Nutcracker as the mouse cut I bring.
Speaker 2 (37:59):
It some Tupac. Wow, well done. You get a extra
point for that one, all right. Fancy rat owners practice
something called row dentistry. You're not gonna believe this one,
so where they'll open up their mouths and let a
rat nibble and pick food from their teeth. They're basically
outsourcing the job of flossing to their pets.
Speaker 1 (38:17):
That's crazy.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
You have to YouTube this. I'm not kidding. It's so gross.
The owners will just lean back and the rats get
really deep in their mouths. It's because rats have a
grooming behavior where they'll clean each other's teeth, and rat
parents basically consider it the ultimate compliment. So you have
to YouTube it.
Speaker 1 (38:34):
Well, I cannot top that, So you win this week's
fact Off. Thank you to our listeners out there. Please
send in your suggestions for rebranding the rat and we'll
make sure you get a fun prize out of it.
And you know well, there's one last part of the
show that we need to deal with, the Part Time
Genius Award. That's right, and today I'd like to nominate
the author of the best book I read last year,
The Stench of Honolulu, of course, and also America's pre
(38:56):
eminent rat poet. That's right, mister Jack Handy. You will
be added to our Hall of Genius and we'll be
mailing you a certificate to hang on your fridge.
Speaker 2 (39:04):
Congratulations, Jack Candy. And in honor of Jack Candy, why
don't we read one last poem from America's greatest rat
put to close the show.
Speaker 1 (39:11):
I think that's a fine idea. The Middle Ages were
the best of times to be a rat. You could
point to a man with plague and say I gave
him that.
Speaker 2 (39:22):
Thank you. Until next time, we're Will and Mango for
Part Time Genius. Thanks again for listening to Part Time Genius.
(39:42):
Be sure to subscribe wherever you listen to your podcast.
And because we're a brand new show, if you're feeling
extra generous, we'd love it if you give us a
rating on Apple Podcasts. Part Time Genius is produced by
some of our favorite geniuses. It's edited by Tristan McNeil,
theme song and audio mixing by Noel Brown. Our executive
producer is Jerry Rowland. Search team as Gabe Lucier, Lucas Adams,
Autumn white Field, Modrono, Austin Thompson and Meg Robbins. Jason
(40:05):
Hoak as our chief cheerleader
Part-Time Genius News
Hosts And Creators
Will Pearson
Mangesh Hattikudur
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