The albino laboratory rat with its red eyes and white fur is an iconic model organism for scientific research in a variety of fields. Laboratory rats or lab rats are strains of the rat subspecies Rattus norvegicus domestica (Domestic Norwegian rat) which are bred and kept for scientific research.

Sep 19, 2024 · Studies of rat affect, cognition, and neural function provide compelling evidence that rats have some capacity to represent others’ needs, to instrumentally act to improve their well-being, and are thus capable of forms of targeted helping.

Feb 27, 2019 · For decades, lab rats and mice have been used to make great scientific and medical advances, from cancer drugs and HIV antiretrovirals to the yearly flu vaccine.

Sep 20, 2024 · Today’s Deep Dive explores the empathetic side of rats. But first, catch up on the latest science news, including a call to rethink when patients should get transfusions. The researcher’s model, dubbed PhanDA, estimates the global mean surface temperature across the last 485 million years. Judd et al. / Science (2024)

Lab rats are particularly well suited to behavioral and psychological studies involving learning and cognition because of their ability to learn tasks quickly. Genetically engineered rat models have been developed for understanding the pathophysiology of diseases.

Apr 19, 2022 · Recently laboratory rats have helped show how science can exterminate their plague-carrying dock and alley kin. A bacterial culture, known as “ratinin,” has been …

6 days ago · Russell is a Science Writer with IFLScience and has a PhD in the History of Science, Medicine and Technology. View full profile ... The rats only work 30 minutes a day, in the cool early hours of ...

Feb 11, 2023 · The history of the lab rat dates back centuries, and the sequencing of the rat genome in the early 2000s means rat research is providing more insight than ever.

Sep 19, 2024 · The book tackles a number of rat-related topics: rats in film, literature, and historical narrative; rats as experimental animals or foci of scientific study; and rats as objects of fear and loathing in popular culture.

Rats are a model organism for analyzing several important biomedical traits, such as cardiovascular diseases, metabolic disorders, autoimmune diseases, cancer susceptibility, renal diseases, neurological disorders, transplantation studies, etc. For instance, the rat is often the preferred model in the case of polygenetically-controlled diseases.