CHICAGO (AP) -- Squirrels hit the genetic lottery with their chubby cheeks and bushy tails. It's hard to imagine picnickers tossing peanuts and cookies at the rodents if they looked like rats. But good looks alone don't get you through Chicago winters. Nor do they help negotiate a treacherous landscape of hungry cats, cars and metal traps. So how do they do it? And why do they search, huddle, dart, and sometimes forget where they hid their nuts? Joel Brown aims to find out. "We're trying to get a glimpse of what your life is like if you are a city squirrel," said Brown, a biologist at the University of Illinois-Chicago. He and a team of students will trap squirrels in Chicago and its suburbs this winter, taking skin samples for DNA analysis. They'll strap collars on them and watch what they do. And they'll attach threads to acorns and hazelnuts, then see where the squirrels take them and when they eat them.I'm not sure how this "research" will benefit humanity, but I'm sure it's far less work than trying to find a cure for cancer.
2 comments:
I've always believed Government grants are clever scams to con the government out of money.
The problem is our Governments are only too willing to let themselves be conned.
And that effects all us taxpayers adversely.
I think I'll apply for a grant to study how gullible the Government is.
These guys are the ones that are squirrely.
Guys,come sit in my back yard for a day or two and you'll learn everything you'd ever want to know about the common garden variety fox squirrel (red or black) - I'll let you do it for a small percentage of that government money you're drawing to do that study...
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