Just in case all the tech advances exploding around us aren't proof enough that Shadowrun is becoming reality....I give you Devil Rats! (IMG:style_emoticons/default/eek.gif)

Devil Rats

Rodents of unusual size? I don’t think they exist…

Famous last words :)

Actually, the cabybara would more likely fit the name, as it is 1.5 meters long (and much uglier). I hate how scientists talk about "species" since it is such a nebulous, hard to define term. For example "chihuahua" is one species, and "great dane" is another. But they can breed, right? Is that a new species, a "great cihuahua?" Even a 6 year old can tell they are the same kind of animal.

I also dislike how scientists push this failed theory of global warming. Did you guys know that the past 3 years or so we've seen a lot of cooling? Almost like we're heading into an "ice age." Oh, and I think it was right around 1850 or so that we had the last "ice age" too.

Scientists need to stop looking at things distorted by their predjudices and actually look at the facts, then make their conclusions like they were taught in scool.

No. All breeds of domestic dog fall under the the species Canis lupis, subspeices familiaris by the American Society of Mammalogists and the Smithsonian Institution. Older clasification systems listed familiaris as the species and not the subspecies, but even then all breeds fell under that term.

That may be. But a horse is Equus ferus caballus, a zebra is Equus Hippotigris (mostly), yet the can breed into a zorse. Again, same kind, different "species."

Wow. Just.... wow.

Interestingly, there is a link on that page to a piece about newly-discovered rat-eating plants. Ain't nature wonderful!

Gotta have something in place to keep the rats from taking over.

My questions is, do these plants have a natural predator? If not, they might grow up to eat people.

And a zorse is sterile. If you want to tell others to think out of the box, you'd better first learn what's in the box. It is true that bounding species is a tough problem, but all your examples show is that you don't know the half of it.

Yeah-they explain it away as the fact that we should be in a more significant cooling period. But I would add that they are currently talking about differences of a few degrees. Given the fact that accurrate tracking of temparature has only been around for 200-300 (and less than that globally-try 50) years-I think we know jack and drek about our enviroment. And the proverbial Jack left town years ago.

First off, the definition of a species is when two animals can mate, have young, and those young MUST BE CAPABLE OF REPRODUCING WIHT THEIR OWN KIND. Thus, since a zorse is sterile, zebras and horses are not the same species. Though a tiger and lion may reproduce, all male ligers and tigons are also sterile, thus the tiger and lion are different species. When chihuahuas and great danes mate (squick), their offspring are fertile, thus they are the same species, and more yet, the same subspecies.
And I swear to god I hate global warming arguments. I don't give a shit what the truth is, but this is NOT the place for it.
As for the devil rats, I wonder if the creepy giant volcano crater rats capable of controlling other rats? If so, I'm scared...

More than the possibility of ROUS, I fear the possibility of cranium rats!

EDIT: friggin' hell, you'd think I'd've learned to read the whole damn thread before posting, wouldn't you?

I try to learn something new everyday.
If I can't learn something new, relearning is fine!

Not learning anything? Inconceivable!

Getting back to the original topic, I was underwhelmed when I read that this thing was only 32 inches from nose to tailtip. Up until he died a few months ago, I had a pet fancy rat (Rattus norvegicus) that was 21 inches from nose to tailtip. Of course, he was kind of large as far as fancy rats go, but the one from these news reports is only half again as big. It's a shame he passed, but being a rat has been known to cause cancer in rats (there's lots of research to support this).

You keep using that word... I do not think it means what you think it means.

Actually, the scientific method isn't exactly "look at facts then draw conclusions". It's more like "look at facts, formulate hypothesis, test it (by more observation and/or experiments) then draw a conclusion". And then there are the details on how you should lead your experiments/observation to avoid bias and errors.
And even then, there's still peer review.

All this doesn't prevent mistakes or prejudices, but all in all it doesn't work that bad. I think that a lot more problems come from the difference between what's in the paper and what the medias make of it.

I have heard stories about wharf rats bigger than this fellow.
Were they actually rats? I have no idea.

My grandfather and others swear
they encountered a rat
that was bigger than a cat
but when pressed they're fair
saying not much more than that.

Of course the internet has loads of other larger possible rodents.

It took me a while to notice that 'cabybara' is what we call in Brazil as 'capivara'. Ok, capivaras are the largest rodents ever, but they are no rats. They don't behave like rats and they don't live like rats. If this New Guinean rat had bigger teeth and more attitude, I would definitely call it a devil rat, let's see what happens when it gets angry (IMG:style_emoticons/default/grinbig.gif)

did somebody say Capybara?

http://www.break.com/index/huge-capybara-e...a-popsicle.html

That was my favorite part. Although, I think this falls less under devil rat and more under dire rat.