Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Paw-Eye Coordination

I had to stop what I was doing to post this during the middle of my morning perusal of science news. Forget curing cancer, lengthening life expectancy or cold fusion. This breakthrough has infinite implications for the natural world, and the species known as "couch potato."

The Japananese have taught a rodent -- in this case something called a degus -- to use a rake. It's small, as you will see on the video accompanying the article, but if we can breed gigantic watermelons, why not breed degi (or whatever) to rake our lawns, vaccuum the den and do the laundry.

One problem, however: They like to eat bulbs, and I can see them now grabbing a rake from the shed and digging up my tulips, daffodils and lilies without having to dirty their grubby little paws.

But we humans are smarter. Should this rodent ever eat my bulbs, I would give it a scooper and assign it to clean the cat litter.

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