Lynn Desjardins, Marc Montgomery, Carmel Kilkenny
Photo Credit: rci

The LINK Online Sat. Apr.16, 2016

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The brown rat, or Norway rat, is the most successful species on Earth, second only to humans. They are intelligent and pass along learned lessons from human traps, making itdifficult to fool them into a trap. New research may have overcome their resistance, and has proved ten times more effective at catching them compared to conventional traps
The brown rat, or Norway rat, is the most successful species on Earth, second only to humans. They are intelligent and pass along learned lessons from human traps, making it difficult to fool them into a trap. © Sean McCann

Most people really don’t like rats, and with good reason. They carry and spread disease, they destroy crops, can harm other species, and more.

But the brown rat is a smart rat having evolved alongside humans and they have learned to be wary of our traps. Poisons often still work, but they can kill other animals who hunt rats, or scavengers who might eat the poisoned bodies

New research at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia has led to a new trap technology, a triple whammy that has proven ten times more successful than conventional traps.

Marc spoke to professor Gerhard Gries who led the research.

The gap between Canadian children in the middle of society and those at the lower end is large and growing, says UNICEF. © UNICEFCanada/2015/Bob Frid

A new report by the United Nations Children’s Emergency Fund (UNICEF) says Canada’s children are not doing all that well.

For a wealthy country, there are too many Canadian children at the bottom of the social scale.

In fact, in terms of the gap between children at the bottom, and those in the middle, Canada ranks 26th out of 35 wealthy countries rated by UNICEF.

Lynn spoke to David Morley, president and CEO of  UNICEF Canada

Bixi bicycles at a docking station in Montreal.

PBSC Urban Solutions is a Montreal-based company that is now becoming an international success.

The company produces a type of bicycle and infrastructure for bicycle sharing programmes which are now being adopted by cities around the world.

Carmel spoke to the company president and CEO Luc Sabbatini

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