When I was asked to give an impromptu five-minute speech and then to count backwards in intervals of 17 - all in front of a panel of three strangers - the acute stress was written on my face. That is because psychologists from the University of Sussex were filming this somewhat terrifying experience for a research project that is studying stress using thermal cameras.
set up camp at three classic New York City haunts: a park, a subway platform and a sidewalk. Using thermal cameras and specialized microphones, they recorded the rodents moving like glowing phantoms across the pavement while squeaking away at frequencies far above human hearing. The real kicker? When an ambulance screamed by, the rats screamed louder. As Mackevicius put it: "They're just kind of screaming to each other, but we just don't hear it."
The findings shed light on how rats have adapted to city lifeand how chatty they are. There's this kind of secret language that rats are communicating in with each other that we don't hear, says Emily Mackevicius, a neuroscientist and a co-author of the study. They're very social, adds Ralph Peterson, another study co-author. They're rugged, and they're New Yorkers themselves: persistent and resilient and able to thrive in a very extreme environment.
