Good news for city-dwellers. No longer will you have to wait in tortured silence, praying for the rats outside to become more intelligent and crafty. Never again will you wander down an alley of rats with only normal-level intelligence. Now, the rats that plagued you will be able to steal your food AND identity. Cause you kinda look like a rat.
In the annals of “WHAT HAS SCIENCE WROUGHT?!”, this is actually pretty cool. Chinese scientists have created the world’s smartest rat. The adorably named Hobbie-J over-expresses a gene that regulates neuron communication, meaning his neurons fire really fast and he’s able to retain information and also controls most of our currency reserve and will come for us in the night. Provided they don’t pair him with another incredibly stupid rat that foils all of his plans. I smell a television show.
The gene, NR2B, was altered to increase the speed at which Hobby processes information. Hopefully in the future, drugs can be developed which will also stimulate the gene into over-expression, counteracting debilitating conditions like Alzheimer’s and that thing that I did where I hit my head against desks repeatedly because I was bored.
I would like to play chess against this rat.
