Parts of the a c. a Also known as Obamacare would disappear the Justice Department made the arguments in a brief filed in a federal appeals court in New Orleans d.o.j. Says that when Congress eliminated the tax penalty for people who don't have insurance it rendered the whole law unconstitutional the trumpet ministration has joined with several Republican led states that are asking the court to uphold a Texas judge's decision to overturn the Affordable Care Act in its entirety that includes the popular AC provisions that insure people with preexisting medical conditions can get coverage that ban lifetime limits on insurance payouts and that guarantee young people can stay on their parents' policies until they're 26 if the appeals court upholds the Texas judge's ruling they see it could end up before the Supreme Court for a 3rd time Alison Kojak n.p.r. News an extradition hearing is underway in London for Wiki Leaks founder Julian Assange the tramp administration wants him to face charges in the u.s. For allegedly conspiring to break into a Pentagon computer system N.P.R.'s Frank Langfitt says that Assad wrote a letter explaining why he jumped bail in 2012 before spending 7 years holed up in Ecuador's embassy there was a letter from a doctor saying he'd become introverted and sad medicine said he was sorry for jumping bail he said he was struggling for terrifying circumstances and he thought at the time this was the best thing to do by the judge of course dismissed that argument said this actually it cost u.k. Taxpayers about $20000000.00 and that no one's above the law N.P.R.'s Frank Langfitt Asuncion serving a 50 week prison jail sentence for skipping bail he was wanted for questioning in Sweden in a rape investigation Cuban officials are denying repeated u.s. Allegations that they have military personnel in Venezuela as N.P.R.'s Carrie Kahn reports the official say the Cubans are humanitarian workers Cuba's deputy director for u.s. Affairs John a taboo says the 20000 Cubans in Venezuela are civilians almost all doctors. Yes there are no troops. There is no. In any sort of military or security operations President Trump tweeted this week that if Cuba didn't cease military operations there he would impose a complete and total embargo of the island Cuba's. National security adviser John Bolton a pathological liar Bolton a longtime Cuba hard liner has been key in the trumpet ministrations tough new sanctions against Cuba Carrie Kahn n.p.r. News have. Less than a half an hour to go to the opening bell Wall Street is trading a mixed territory you're listening to n.p.r. News. The crowded field of people vying for the 2020 Democratic presidential nomination rose by one today Colorado Senator Michael Bennet announced his candidacy a new poll finds Islamophobia is inching up as N.P.R.'s Leila Fadel reports the survey comes from a d.c. Bay based think tank that examines American Muslim views the annual poll from the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding finds that a strong tool against racism is education the head is the director of research at you while it was very powerful to know Muslim as a protective factor against Islam a phobia that knowing about Islam as a faith was an even more powerful protective factor against holding anti Muslim sentiment she says the fact that anti Muslim sentiment increased isn't surprising she points to the travel ban being legitimized by the Supreme Court and asylum seekers spoken about as invaders as factors driving that uptick in n.p.r. News in Sri Lanka Roman Catholic services will be cancelled for a 2nd weekend in the country's capital Colombo after the government warned of the possibility of more attacks by the same group that carried out Easter Sunday suicide bombings last week Muslims were told to stay home for Friday prayers and all of the country's Catholic churches were closed as authorities continue to search for suspects linked to the bombing ISIS has claimed a connection to the attacks u.s. Futures contracts are trading in mixed territory this hour Dow futures contract down about 110th of a percent Nasdaq futures contract is up about a fraction of a percent you're listening to n.p.r. News support for n.p.r. Comes from n.p.r. Stations other contributors include pro Quest creators of pro Quest one academic unifying journals ebooks videos and dissertations across disciplines and one enabled interface pro Quest dot com slash go slash n.p.r. . This is where we live from Connecticut Public Radio I'm listing all potential Lyme disease was 1st discovered an old lived Connecticut but today the disease is in all 50 states according to the federal c.d.c. That's the best way to prevent more cases researchers in Connecticut have been studying a new strategy to reduce the ticks that carry law I'm all talk with science writer Angus Chen about efforts to vaccinate mice That's coming up later since we're talking rodents you may have seen a recent story in The Hartford Current about a rap problem in some neighborhoods in the capital city coming up we'll hear from biologists about why rats have adapted so well to living near humans and urban areas but 1st joining us to talk about Harford's efforts to reduce the rat population in studio with me now is Dan Luce a rodent inspector for the city of Hartford Dan welcome to our show Thanks for having me here and Leon e.o. Royals director of the Department of Health and Human Services for the city of Hartford Leoni Welcome to everyone thank you so Dan let's learn more about your job I understand again through the heart for current reporting as well as what we were talking with you before the show you've been responding to calls to 311 when City residents in Hartford are complaining about road and so tell me about what's been happening lately have you been having to go out more often Yes. After the after this article we have a whole bunch of a lot of complaints. Spaced out $31.00 complaints and when I go out there I assess the situation and usually it's exposed garbage dumpsters overflowing there's a whole a dumpster and a lot of times people complain they have their own problem but it's not there's property it's next door property with exposed garden stuff so hopefully in the next few months. More road inspectors induce inspectors going to be proactive go from the block the block that's the way we get to control the rodent population stuff when we're talking about rodents being an issue in particular neighborhoods where in the city citywide. It does and I had a plane maybe a couple months ago nice property I go there will be whole they have a bird feeder you know in the rafters in the bird seeds on the ground and they had all run right to the garage where they were living so it's a city wide problem so how does someone know that they have an issue with rats because they see them or what are some of the telltale signs so to speak that there is a rats hanging out by your house well a lot of times they drive in their driveway also and they see a rat scary in from the. Garbage cans to the place where they live like for the next or grudge or like next to the house into the flow and they see the holes in the garbage cans or they're not you know and that's something you know telltale signs of road infestation early on again you're director of the Department of Health and Human Services for the city of Hartford So when did this uptick really start Well I think folks are getting. More educated in seeing what's happening and using the 311 system more so we do know that there's quite a number of things happening in the city that might have disturbed sort of natural rodent habitats we have the big m.d.c. Project that's happening and that's digging into the sewer so we work closely with m.d.c. And working with them to ensure that we're mitigating that you know construction projects as well can oftentimes be a cause of rodents moving around but the reality is you know we have a city that's an urban area there's lots of people lots of density lots of food establishments and things in the ne in our neighborhoods so it's it is a part of urban living in our job is to control that and work with both our business owners and our property owners to work together to learn how to deal with it and you said something earlier when you responded to a particular call at a home and they had a bird feeder out so obviously rats are attracted to where there's food so when we think about whether someone has a seed during the winter in their bird feeder or. Are City residents doing enough to control to keep rats from you know biting into their garbage or is there a trash part problem in terms of securing it in certain parts of the city well you need to educate the people 1st you know whether it be like. A website or you know pamphlets a lot of people think would just be in the birds but no you feel in the rats also people like throw bread dough in storefronts you know the extra you know and well behold they have rats you know running around like time you know the bread and stuff but the main thing is that we have to be proactive a lot of people don't call in for Rhona complaints and then the worst case scenarios are no if they're scared of the fate of gunfire and yeah we were out the other day and also on the Hill there's like right now a sidewalk there's like 20 holes no one called and we just have to I just happened notice that so it's nother plus to being proactive because a lot of people don't call and that's you know they don't call it also only I did you want to build on that because when we think about pest control it can oftentimes be reactive So in terms of being more proactive do we need more Dan's on the street in Hartford to help with road in control Well absolutely and that's part of the work that we've been doing we knew when I came on board I knew that this was an issue that I wanted to be a trust I was told out by the administration that this was something that needed to be addressed and we spent the last year working and educating ourselves more about what's out there so we sent someone to our division head to the rodent control Academy in New York City to find out in Control Academy rodent control Academy Road Academy Yes and. So I think Dan probably should. Well he might be going on this upcoming year there's not to say that that won't happen but we sent our division head out there to come back and let us know what's the newest stuff that's happening so we know that there's an aspect of education for the community that we need to work on and so that's part of it we know that we need to get out. We are more often with more people and that's another part of a and then the other piece is what Dan has that is really making sure that people are calling it in right and not thinking that somebody else is calling it in because the more that we can get ahead of something the better it is and we've been doing as Dan has said previously what we see right now isn't as bad as what was happening in the ninety's right so those efforts have definitely carried over so I want to continue those efforts and get better and do more work and be and be more proactive around education in the community this is where we live in studio with me Leon director of the partner of Health and Human Services for the city of Hartford and then loose a rodent Specter for the city of Hartford and they were taking in a full hour to talk about rodents recently a story in The Hartford Current about a rat influx and certain neighborhoods later on when talking with a biologist about why urban rats have gotten so well have adapted so well to living near humans but if you want to join a conversation find us on Facebook and Twitter at where we live it's a Dan what are the steps you mentioned being proactive. Residents calling in when they noticed a particular activity but in terms of trying to control rats they can be vectors for disease what are the things that you do when you go out to control the population Well if you have to get rid of the food source the rats get it and so like I said before at the dumpsters the garbage cans bird feeders you know I get really food source and then we get to the food source we put poison down that's the last step we don't put poison though he had you know I mean it is the poison go inside a rat wrote in Peru and. Put the poison the Rotenberg cover it up and I go there next day to check to see if it's popped oh so cover the whole. It's a day to day. Process so we just put the poison down and come back a month later we just like check check out it regularly. Basically the food source you know it's called Integrated press. Poisons the last step we do some of our listeners when they hear that. Some type of poison is being used they worry about that traveling up the food chain especially when rodents are preyed on by rapture of such as owls and other other birds so in that sense I heard Leon when you mentioned the rodent Academy in New York City what are some other approaches to dealing with rats that don't include using poison so I mean I think one of one of the 1st things that to mention to pick up a little bit on what Dan was saying is the importance of integrated pest management right so the 1st thing you want to do is really make sure that anything that can contribute to that is taking care of so that can be leaves Bush's that have not been taking care of that are overgrown that could be trash that could be your pet waste right because that's another that's another aspect leaving your pet food out so want to make sure that's done 1st after do we go through all those steps are also helping the homeowner make sure that they're protecting their home and showing that there's no way for anything to get inside their home and then as Dan mentioned al dente aside his last other real dent aside that we used is very much controlled the percentages of all the poisons and all of those things are controlled by the state deep right they regulate that and that is to ensure that we're not harming other animals so we are very careful about that we ensure that if we see presence of pets and other small animals we take other steps before we use road dunce aside and if we see pet waste we're talking to the homeowners about not putting poison on the other things that we're looking at that really have coming from from our rodent control information is really using dry. Nice to suffocate the member a holes right that made me Dan's work in many ways and I dish and all rodent control inspectors that we may get. A lot a lot more fruitful in many ways right so if they go out and he see a presence of animals they want to work with the homeowner to clean everything up before the president decides but in this case they can just put the dry ice in the barrel right and we don't have to worry about other animals getting in there so that's one of the biggest things that we're learning about and that we're getting more information about so that is ideally a part of what will be a part of our upcoming plan to move forward on that and I want to pick up on something I Dan would you tell residents that you're encountering when he if they have a rat issue in their neighborhood to not go out and buy the poison Yeah because a lot of times they go to Home Depot buy some poison and they put it in a play and leave in the backyard a squirrel possum skunk to get it someone scattered Exactly and they think their hope no I got this in the backyard to go no just get rid of it I'll take care of it yeah so that's why. It's important to call in to us and we'll take care of it you know and then we could like some people want to call exterminator but we have more like power the next time that we could like actually site the next property over and educate them tell me Hey you got to get rid of your dumpster or if you're repairing stuff though this is where we live again now we're talking about how cities are trying to combat wrote an infestation specifically rats in Hartford is what the statements about Alex I want to join the conversation from New Haven Alex go ahead. So on the New Haven green there are receptacles for trash and within those metal receptacles go up by the quieter the metal receptacles have gaps in them and so what happens is a rat to the plastic liner and they can get that weight into the plastic bag so if the garbage is not changed daily and at night you can go to your haven going to check it out or holes all the plastic weiners not all the metal containers that's how the rats use they're all right Alex thank you for sharing that with us and that's something that the city of Hartford he's coming from New Haven but in terms of getting into the public eye receptacles in parks Absolutely and so we know we had some some parks have changed over to sort of the big compact ers that are fantastic and so that is something that's awful a part of what we're looking at there pricey and they need a maintenance schedule so we're looking at all over those options but it's definitely a part of the work right when we're thinking about the plan that we've put together for the city it's really comprehensive it's not just we're going to roll some extra inspectors out there because that's not enough Ray it's the inspectors it's the education it's the proactiveness it's changing things that need to be changed like having more of those big compact areas that are metal around so all of that is on the table and moving forward as we're going through our budgeting process but there will be things that will be doing in the spring right so we're going to have don't have a really catchy name for it yeah but there will definitely be a campaign in the spring time to go out and educate our residents and go out and do more surveying of as well as Dan was saying going block to block identifying what needs to be done and working as we have in the past very closely with our nuisances specters So as we head into break Leon a 3 things that city residents can do to help combat this issue so in your own neighborhood if you see trying. And you can help pick it up it's everyone's responsibility right the city does its part we should all be doing our part so if you see something pick it up if you see something called 311 in that us know if it's overflowing dumpsters if it's rodents and then lastly on your own properties just be conscious of what you're doing pets curb your pets if you have a bird feeder please don't put it out because that will track specially in areas where we know we there there could be a lot of rodent activity so those I think are 3 things that our residents can do to help control the population and Dan you said earlier for the business owners don't throw bread on the sidewalk because they do that for the birds are going to. Help out here well Dan Lisa we appreciate you coming in and again the road inspector for the city of Hartford and Leonia Roya director of the partment of Health and Human Services for the city of Hartford both of you thanks so much for coming on thank you this is where we live from Connecticut Public Radio I'm loosing all potential Coming up we're going to learn more about urban rats and find out maybe we just have to learn to live alongside them all and take your questions to join the conversation find us on Facebook and Twitter where we live. On the next fresh air John Bolton on the war path we talk with Dexter Filkins staff writer for The New Yorker about his article on president trumps national security advisor John Bolton the hawkish former Fox News commentator aggressive world view contrast with Trump's isolationist tendencies join us. Today at noon and tonight at 10. The crisis in Venezuela has led to critical food and medicine shortages it's forced millions to flee the country to war but for many it was impossible to be with those. Many have ended up in neighboring Colombia which now has its 1st refugee camp story and reaction from William bars testimony this afternoon on All Things Considered from n.p.r. News. Today for support comes from Jaguar Land Rover North Haven and Hartford Stage. Support comes from our members and from Holiday Hill day camp in Mansfield where children and teens can learn important social and physical skills in an atmosphere of encouragement acceptance and fun and rolling out holiday recreation dot com slash n.p.r. . You'll see a mix of clouds and Sunday maybe a late day thunderstorm highs in the sixty's for most fifty's in the eastern areas tonight a chance of showers lows around 45 tomorrow mostly cloudy with some rain highs in the fifty's Saturday a mix of clouds and sun a chance of showers 70 it listening to rebroadcast of where we live. This is where we live from Connecticut Public Radio I'm loosing all the fan Szell we just heard about how Hartford is dealing with the influx of rats in certain parts of the city it's really not the 1st urban area to wrestle with a rock task or feat that might be a bit of an exaggeration but when you think about city rats New York City probably comes to mind thankfully our next guest works in the city and has the answers to some of our questions like What makes rats so attempt to bolt joining us via Skype is Jason munchie South professor of biology at Fordham University his lab studies animals that live in cities and he focuses particularly on rats Jason welcome to our show I thank you for having me my pleasure to be here so we 1st we wanted to find out you know why do you study rats Jason. Well my my career actually began studying native animals and city parks and how they're adapting to live in urban conditions. But rats are this you know omnipresent animal in simply says like New York City and they realize you know a lot of people have not studied their basic biology or evolution or or how they were succeeding in cities and so we decided that this would actually be a creature that we should learn more about especially how it relates to human communities because they're very tightly their ecology their evolution is very tightly linked to human behavior so when you think about urban rats what kinds of rats are we talking about when we are in New York City and might see them scurrying around the subway. In New York City and the rest of the Northeast United States places like Hartford there is one species of rap that has invaded the city it's Radisson or Vegetius the brown rat where the Norway rat sometimes called the city rat or the sewer rat. And it's moved all over the world at this point and as particularly common in colder cities there's another rat that lives in some cities in the United States the black rat and it actually arrives in most cities earlier than the brown rat because it survives very well on ships and it was it moved around very quickly when the brown red arrived the brown rat seems to have competed the black rat in colder areas so now we just have this one species the brown rot or the Norway rat that's a misnomer so where do they actually come from Jason. Yeah the Norway rat name comes from you know early invasions in Europe when they were identified you know that this species was identified by a biologist from specimens collected in Norway so he called it there over the Norway rat but the species actually originated in northeastern China and we believe that's where it originally evolved to become commensal with humans commensal means literally means that they eat at the same table with us so this at this in this place. Is of years ago likely when people in northeastern China began developing agriculture a rat the brown rat of all to basically live off of grain that was being stored and grown in fields. You also mentioned the black rat and that's something that people associate that with the plague. That's right so the black red evolved likely originated likely and in India. South Asian subcontinent and then moved into the Middle East in Europe and before the brown rat and it's implicated as one of the major sources of the plague bacteria and it was ultimately the fleas biting the rats and inviting him and that spread the plague that there are thought to be the source of some of those major plague outbreaks in Europe that killed a large proportion of the human population and why are brown rats glad they've been able to dominate i might happen to the Black Widow. We actually don't know for sure how the brown rat outcompetes the Black Rat they will live in the same cities in warmer areas like New Orleans and they subdivide the habitat where the black rat will be living up and roofs of buildings or in trees or in vegetation and the brown rat will be living down closer to the ground. In terms of why the brown rot is so successful in cities there's a couple reasons one is that they can eat just about anything we eat so anything we are throwing away they can take advantage of and they like foods that are high in protein high in fat presumably things that are high in sugar so the kinds of things that our modern diet is composed of and they will eat vegetables and in fruits when available. So that's one reason the other reason is that they are explicitly adapted for rapid reproduction so I can give you a bit of a scenario So imagine a single brown rat female is born. In about 5 weeks she is able to get pregnant. It only takes her 3 weeks to gestate the babies and then she can give birth to anywhere from a few to over 10 pups and while she is nursing them she can actually get pregnant again and so she is simultaneously nursing one litter and gestating the next one so if conditions are good and resources are highly available a brown rat female can produce dozens of offspring in her lifetime. Poor mama rat that's a lot of it not a baby that this is. When we also think about the brown rat you talk about in terms of how they were able to be spread worldwide and how that had to do with the Time enough when they came to Europe. Sure my lab has recently completed a study using whole genome sequences of rats that we. Either collected ourselves around the world or other scientists sent to us and we're using that information to reconstruct the history of this bases and it does seem that they evolved in northeastern China that's where you have the most diverse rap populations and then not that long ago probably less than a 1000 years ago they finally made their way into Southeast Asia following agricultural communities and then once they got into Southeast Asia they moved into the Middle East about 100 years later so we're talking maybe you know 800 years ago 100 years ago and then our dating of these genetic differences between rat populations suggests they got into Europe some time on the order of you know 400 to 500 years ago maybe a little earlier in Eastern Europe and then what happened is once they had x. Expanded across Western Europe into France and Spain and Portugal and Great Britain they happened to arrive about the same time that these countries were sending out huge numbers of naval ships and merchant ships in an attempt to dominate other parts of the world and it's that during that period that the brown rat was likely spread to Africa North and South America Australia so they basically hitched a ride on all of these imperial ships that originated in France and Great Britain and Spain and Portugal and you see so what we see is a very close relationship between most of the urban rap populations in the eastern United States South America Africa. 2 populations in present day United Kingdom and France and Spain. You're hearing Jason Munshi sound a professor of biology at Fordham University here on where we live his lab studies animals that live in cities that the particular focus on rats and. You had mentioned Jason that this genetic study of brown rats and what you've learned about them how they spread but when you look at when you've also looked at that particular genetics of the New York City brown rats that tell us a little bit about what you've learned about their characteristics and what parts of the city are they live sure so we've also done a very fine scale study on the island of Manhattan my graduate student back Combs and I have tracked hundreds of rats on what happened and used genetics to understand how they're related We also want to know specifically where these rats came from and we originally thought they would have been derived from multiple sources Great Britain maybe France maybe East Asia more recently but what we found is that the population seems to be composed of a single lineage likely from the United Kingdom so it seems that they had Sharod with ships likely in the 7 hundreds of thought that they originated around the Revolutionary War period when there was a lot of ships going back and forth. And we look at the present day population on a fine skill So stepping away from you know how they're related to other populations just looking at Manhattan. We were interested in whether it's a single population that just mixes freely across the island or whether there are small sort of like rat neighborhoods or divisions in the population and one thing we found is that a rat at the tip of Manhattan is different than a rat at the bottom and there's kind of a good tenuous change as you go from north to south but then we were surprised to find that there's actually a break in the population in midtown Manhattan so we could actually identify a town in a downtown set of rats that are mixing all that often and so go ahead and so I was thinking about like when that particular rat might still be traveling into the city and there aren't these that uptown or downtown rat. Populations do they welcome me I mean how do how do they compete with these rats that aren't from town so to speak. We don't know the answer to that for sure but there have been studies that have documented rats coming out of shipping containers at orts So presumably that happens in northeastern cities as well. And the rats will just kind of hang around the port and they don't seem to move very far into the local population it may be that. Rats actually exclude outsiders if there aren't enough resources I would assume that especially females could integrate and breed with males in the population they were arrived in but they don't seem to do that often enough to have a genetic impact. So it seems that they're you know even if they're making it to the cities they're not integrating into the local population is likely a behavioral response that is rats favor breeding with familiar rats from a familiar population when you think about the Uptown in downtown rats in terms of what draws them to those particular parts of Manhattan is there something about the specific landscape the garbage that they're able to access and how far do they travel Jason. Well our results suggest they don't travel very far at all in their life that most rats are aboard and they stay within. A few dozen metres even of where they were born so they may be traveling you know a block or 2 from their original colony but many of them will stay there maybe a slight difference between males and females males tend to move a little bit farther but even they are not moving you know more than a maybe 100 meters in their lifetime and so that that behavior in an urban environment allows for these local communities to develop the reason we think there's this blip in Midtown and there's some data from the New York City Department of Public Health of x. That's up there just aren't very many rats in Midtown and it's likely because there aren't as many residential buildings so that you know they're not generate as much garbage that gets put out on the street in bags but the rats can eat. And there's also you know quite a number of commercial buildings there that basically pay extra money and hire extra cleaners to deal with street level garbage. From a rat's perspective their areas of Midtown are kind of a desert of resources where they don't do very well and there's probably also enhanced management practices there so it is actually you know a bit hopeful it shows that. Even in a place like Manhattan you can suppress the rat population and and and keep them down at least on a local level. The situation is quite a bit different if you look in lower Manhattan Chinatown The Wall Street area that area tends to have the largest rap populations and they're the most genetically diverse and that's where rats were originally introduced because Manhattan was basically a city down at the southern tip of Manhattan and then the rest was farms and other types of well that before the city heavily urbanized but also down there is where you have the oldest infrastructure so they're even wood sewer sewer pipes and they're bricks sewer pipes all sorts of abandoned underground infrastructure. Rats are taking advantage of so the situation is quite different in lower Manhattan Jason we started the show I talking specifically about hard for with Hartford officials about how they're dealing with residents increased complaints about rats is there really a growth in rat populations being seen in cities like card for New York d.c. Or is it just that people are noticing a moment. That is actually unknown or anecdotally there has been an increase in complaints in news stories and attention to rats but nobody is actually collecting long term population data on urban rats there are efforts in New York City and other places to do that we haven't been doing it long enough to know for sure. Elation has increased we do have some ideas you know global climate change may actually increase urban wrap up relations it certainly doesn't feel like it now but this is just a short term weather event where we have all this cold but cities over time they're already warmer than the surrounding landscape and as the climate warms more generally we're going to have more moderate winters in cities and rats will do better if they don't have to deal with extreme cold during the winter this kind of cold snap may actually be good it may kill a lot of rats it's long enough. But ultimately we don't know for sure one thing that was observed in New York City and I think it's kind of like something similar happened Hartford once the city made it easier to complain by introducing a smartphone app that you could use to complain about rats the number of complaints shot up immediately. In one interpretation of that is that oh there are more rats but actually it's probably that people are complaining more often and in higher volume. Well when we think about what makes rats so adaptable obviously cities have different ways of managing these pasts some people don't like having them around because they don't like the way they look but we do know rats can be reservoirs for disease as you move forward when you think about the research research that you've done and house what cities can learn from this type of research when they think about controlling the rat population I mean they can only do so much right rats will be living alongside us they've been doing it for a long time and they will continue to so we just accept the be around we can eradicate them. I think eradication is off the table for now there may eventually be technologies like. You know genetic engineering that allows us to introduce genes that have a population that cause them to produce all male offspring or something but that's way off in the future and may never be realised so we really are to situation where we need to manage the population I think you heard a lot of good strategies from the Harvard officials I've actually taken that same road and Academy so I know what they're talking about terms of integrated management. We shouldn't give up you know ultimately rats are a human problem caused problem and it largely has to do with access to food and nesting sites so if you can manage garbage and exclude rats or mean that garbage and you know this is underappreciated but do you if you can exclude them from places like cracks in buildings and cracks in the sidewalk and from getting into basements they don't have nearly as many refuges from the cold in places to raise their young safely so you can it you can reduce the population that way part of the problem is that most you know simple programs focus on one property at a time where there has been a problem detected or a complaint has been received but really you need to deal with the neighborhood level rat issue because it only really takes one property to be the. Reservoir or this. Lation for the rest of the neighborhood so I think that's really the challenge is getting everybody on board private property owners various city agencies. And then you know smaller problems that and have a big impact like people that feed agents all of these things come together to create urban route population Jason we just have under a minute but I did want to ask when we think about how many millions of people continue to be attracted to living in cities and when we think about other past that have lived in areas and they no longer can compete with humans rats seem to have that better adaptability so to speak and this is an example of what's going to happen in terms of as humans become denser in cities or can we expect the rat populations will also happen to become more dense as well I think they will if somebody out there is looking for a career there where they will be employed most definitely I think population control and Pest Management will be something for the future. For sure we're not going to defeat them any time soon well Jason munchie south it's been a pleasure to speak with you over out of time professor of biology at Fordham University again his lab studies animals that live in cities with a particular focus on rats will tweet out links to more about his research at where we live Jason Thanks my pleasure thank you this is where we live I'm loosing all potential coming up researchers have been studying a new strategy to fight Lyme disease and it involves vaccinating mice will explain after a short break. I make the Coming up on the next point President Trump and Democratic leaders say they'll champion a 2 trillion dollar infrastructure package it's purely aspirational for now but let's think big How would you spend it plus before the Canterbury Tales Geoffrey Chaucer was a teenage fashion plate prisoner of war and traveler will they get to a new biography that's coming up next from n.p.r. . This morning. Support comes from Yale Repertory Theatre presenting Cadillac crew during the civil rights movement for activists wonder about the place of women on the right for equality April 26th there may. And from New Morning Market family owned and Woodbury made to order foods include hot soup skin wobbles local grass fed burgers and vegan B.L.T.'s options for vegetarian and gluten free New Morning Market dot com and from dental associates of Connecticut now including I smile family dentistry of East Hartford dental arts of Avon and Simsbury family and cosmetic dentistry 11 locations dental Associates dot us. You'll see a mix of clouds and Sunday maybe a late day thunderstorm highs in the sixty's for most fifty's in the eastern areas tonight a chance of showers lows around 45 tomorrow mostly cloudy with some rain highs in the fifty's Saturday a mix of clouds and sun a chance of showers 70 it was going to rebroadcast where we. This is where we live from Connecticut Public Radio I'm listing all potential life diseases something many of us worry about especially in Connecticut when the weather warms up and we spend more time outside and is the key to fewer alive disease cases found in the campaign to vaccinate not humans but mice a recent article in Scientific American explains the strategy for more joining us via Skype is Angus Chen He's a New York City based science reporter and he authored a recent article in Scientific American I guess Welcome to the show thanks for having me Lucy great to be here and many of us know that this state has the distinction of being quote unquote Lyme country the 1st case recorded in Old Lyme Connecticut that's down by the shore so what do you think when you were doing your research said that this this research the strategy we're going to talk about is actually happening right here in Connecticut Yeah that's right there's been actually a lot of work on this research in Connecticut and earlier pilot study was done to see if mice would actually go for this vaccine and pretty soon we'll be seeing results from a study that was done in the last couple of years seeing if this vaccination from mice could really reduce the prevalence of Lyme disease in sort of the neighborhoods in the communities where we live now before we talk more about this vaccine from mice I understand that scientists did develop a vaccine for Lyme disease for humans but how come we're not getting that today yeah Lucy that's really kind of the tragedy of this story we had a pretty effective line disease vaccine for humans and it came out on the market in 1908 under the brand name of Lyme or x like a lot of vaccines you would take a series of these shots I think for this one it was 3 shots and you would get pretty pretty good immunity against line disease but what happened was pretty soon after this vaccine came out on the market a lot of fear got stoked up around this vaccine it was sort of this big antibiotics . Hysteria related to the Lyme disease Exene people were afraid that the line disease vaccine was actually causing a lot of symptoms that Lyme disease has like joint pain or fatigue and those kinds of things so after the vaccine came on the market lawsuits started being filed against the company and people got too afraid to start actually getting it and doctors stopped recommending it. And I think about 2002 the company that created the vaccine Smith Kline Beecham which is now Glaxo Smith Kline pulled the vaccine off the market so it just came on it was around very briefly and then disappeared so to be clear Angus was there any proven connection between this vaccine and the negative side effects that people alleged were caused by it so that's kind of the sad part of this story there was a lot of fear and a lot of distrust around the vaccine but none of it ever turned out to be shown to be true researchers end up looking into this it to stick around. Symptoms being reported and the fact seems to have been given to people and it just didn't seem like there was any link between what people are alleging was happening due to the vaccine and what was actually happening. So the short answer is no whatever this fear was it seems to be completely unfounded So the human vaccine for Lyme disease sidelined but so then the development of vaccine for Animals can you walk us through that yeah we think about we have dogs or cats that are home that. Yes the vaccine that was developed for humans and the vaccine that we have for Lyme disease that we give to dogs and pets and things like that is pretty much the same vaccine it works and on the same principle and it actually works actually really well. I think the researchers began thinking about. After after the human vaccine got pulled out the market was well we have this super effective vaccine is there another way that we can leverage it to actually protect people's health if we can give a direct to the people maybe we could give it to wildlife and try to eliminate Lyme disease from the source and that's kind of where this idea of giving this Lyme disease vaccine to mice came from because mice are probably the most important reservoir for Lyme disease what that means is that mice carry the bacteria inside of the body a lot of the time and when I take has the bacteria the brother burgdorferi bacteria that causes Lyme disease about half the time that it got it from biting an infected mouse so researchers thought well if we could develop this vaccine so they would work for mice and we could spread it in the wilderness or around the communities and neighborhoods where we live and get mice to actually take this vaccine maybe we could stop kids from getting infected with the bacteria in the 1st place and then having those takes transmit that bacteria on to humans that's interesting then that you say that because you know public sentiment we think about Lyme disease is that these are deer ticks and so it's the deer that are overpopulated in their efforts to cull their population but the key might be vaccinating mice. Yeah so deer are an important part of the life cycle and killing deer is if you if you were to kill all the deer in Connecticut that would actually probably have a big impact on line disease transmission rates in the States the problem with that of course is that you know people don't want to kill of a deer in the state that would be not exactly the most ecologically honor Veyron mentally sound thing to do and the thing with vaccine is that you don't actually kill any animals so the benefit of that researchers are thinking is well if you don't have to killing animals or just sort of the bring this vaccine to them maybe we can take Lyme disease out of the equation without really affecting the local ecology being afraid that maybe that would have some kind of cascading effect on our environment and there are models for this type of success any animals to protect humans I guess one example being rabies Yeah so there was a rabies vaccine developed for animals it works in a really similar way so. It's a piece of kibble like a food animal food that has the vaccine in it or on top of it and this was developed a few decades ago now and researchers and public health departments designed it to be spread across large expanses of terrain by aircraft and it would be dropped over these places or foxes or whatever animal you're trying to target with find the food eat it get immunized and wouldn't catch rabies this is been incredibly successful people have done it in the United States they've done it in Canada and Europe and really succeeded in bringing rabies levels down a lot. The trouble is that Lyme disease of is a little bit more complicated than rabies so rabies is sort of species specific so if you have raccoon rabies it's not going to jump over. Too like a dog or something or a fox and so the fox is rabies and going to jump over to raccoons so you could kind of target one time. With Lyme disease it's not quite like that the same bacteria the same exact act here and faxed in many different animals so there is some doubt that this now start seeing would work because maybe even if you vaccinated all the mice in an area sort of other animals that also carry the bacteria like chipmunks or shrews or things like that would be infecting so many ticks that it might not make that big of a difference anyway. There are some arguments for why that might not matter one is just that if you have if you are infected ticks in the environment because mice aren't carrying the disease anymore that could slowly reduce the number of infected by it's on other animals and over time could drop their prevalence of Lyme disease and other wildlife too but we don't really know if that's going to happen and scientists are going to have to design studies to test that specifically before we have that answer I'm talking with Angus Chen He's a New York City based science reporter his most recent story a story rather in Scientific American about vaccinating mice may finally slow Lyme disease so can we talk more about what's being studied here in Connecticut in terms of putting out this kibble that has a vaccine against Lyme disease that mice are eating in a particular type of mouse that is drawn to this or it's just whatever. Free kibble around that they're going to munch on it yeah I mean it's more the latter I think it's the whatever it sees this free travel around is probably going to eat it if that kibble appeals to it so you know I talk about shoes earlier and shoes also carry Lyme disease but they're not going to be interested in this type of kibble cause that's just not the kind of food that they eat chipmunks on the other hand might eat this stuff. And you know if you're asking what type of mice we're looking at were specifically looking at the white footed mouse which is you know just the rodent I care he's so much of this 5 bacteria and I'll tell you a little bit about you know some of the research that's been done already on this vaccine probably the 1st big important study to test this vaccine was done in upstate New York. And what the researchers did was they just treated a bunch of fields about 4 fields with de Lyme disease vaccine and then they've had a bunch of fields that didn't have the vaccine and what they saw was over about a 5 year period if you had to had the vaccine. Ended up with way fewer text are carrying live just these then the fields I didn't have the vaccine so spread throughout them and what Connecticut researchers want to do now so this is actually a collaboration between a bunch of people I think you know university is involved as well as Connecticut state's entomology department they're trying to see if this vaccine would work in a more real world scenario so what they're doing is or what they've already done is sort of spread the kibble that contains this vaccine throughout a bunch of homes in a Connecticut neighborhood in Redding Connecticut and the bait is inside these little boxes basically these little black houses that have holes in it for animals to run in and they can eat the bait inside and they can go back and go about their business. This was run I think for about 2 years and we should be seeing the results from those pretty soon. The researchers I talked to they don't want to say exactly what they found because they haven't published yet but they did say that the results are promising they they look pretty good if not if not indicating that this would be. Silver bullet to Lyme disease so this by itself might not completely eradicate Lyme disease from our community but it could actually help lower Lyme disease rates I'm curious Angus if these trials proved successful successful is there an issue with how much it would cost to deploy a strategy like this more widespread Yeah you know that's actually a really difficult question and I'm glad you asked that because whether or not we end up using this strategy is going to depend on whether the cost of deploying it is going to be efficient you know is it going to cost us less to do to deploy this strategy than to just go about what we are doing normally and try to treat people when they contract Lyme disease and the answer to that is we don't really know yet we kind of need the data from these studies that are being done before we can say Ok well if we spend this much on the Lyme disease vaccine we'll see you know like a 10 percent or a 20 percent or 30 percent drop in the presence of Lyme disease and our communities and with these public health departments that are going to be actually paying for this stuff we need to make that accusation to say well if we if we end up seeing like a 30 or 40 percent drop in Lyme disease prevalence over 5 years then it will be worth it for us to spend you know $2000000.00 buying the stuff to treat neighborhoods every year whereas if you only see like a 5 percent drop in disease prevalence because of the vaccine then public health departments might make the calculation and say well it's not worth it to use this we honestly don't know the answer to that yet but if I had to hazard a guess it seems like there's a good chance that it would be worth it the trial that I talked about in New York State showed something like a. 70 percent drop in Lyme disease prevalence in those treated fields if you take them if you take all those treated feels together on average which is an enormous in the enormous success so again you know to couch that a little bit we have to see if those results would still hold in a real world scenario. And we don't have the answer to that until probably later this year later this year because that's when the clinical trials will be done yeah that's when they connect the trials will be published they've actually already finished the trial the researchers are just going through their data they're analyzing it and making sure that they've dotted other I's and cross the t's. This is very interesting that to learn about and I'm curious now because again we're talking about vaccinating mice to help reduce fewer cases a long time as just one tool in the toolbox so to speak but from your discussions with scientists and researchers you know is there a chance the medical community might revisit allowing a human vaccine against Lyme. And that's a that's a really good question my sense is that the medical community is probably ready to use the Lyme disease vaccine again but it's not really up to the medical community it's really up to us as consumers to say well you know this is something that we want and we want to demand it from pharmaceutical companies that would manufacture this stuff if there's a lot of demand for the products then you know maybe companies will go back and start making it again. The reason why it was pulled off the market in the 1st place was because there was no demand because people were afraid of it pretty much so the unanimous opinion that I had gone from. Medical researchers and from Lyme disease researchers is that the human vaccine works and it's safe it's not really this question of well. Well the medical community accept this vaccine it's whether or not we as a society. Is a good point to end on and again as a New York City based science reporter his recent story published in Scientific American will to have a link where we live and his Thanks so much we hope to have you back thanks to be here. Produced by common basket our typical producer is catch up on our previous shows to download the podcast we're checking out. As always thanks for listening. This is Connecticut Public Radio. N.p.r. . 90.5. 89.1. 88.5. 91.3. B. Or. There are people who do just about anything to taste the good red truck bakery we have a guy a Coke and a new one discovery that's the face Middleton chose here in Connecticut Public Radio. Today free at 9 o'clock support comes from Carlos and market and they have. Numbers for radio this week. To help us decide what to buy including inexpensive cards that most consumers. This week show we travel to our media for barbecue and we get a. Great chops. Weighs in on. All that coming up this week on Wall Street Radio from. Tomorrow night. It's a mix of clouds and Sunday a light they found of storms possible highs in the sixty's for most fifty's and eastern areas Good morning I'm coyote Wolf it's 10 o'clock on Point is next major funding for on point is provided by Geico offering auto insurance coverage for cars trucks or S.U.V.s and providing 247 customer service more information on auto insurance at Geico dot com or 180947 audio. From n.p.r. a w b u r Boston I'm a trucker body this is on point it's an aspirational agreement now with nothing more but President Trump House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senator Chuck Schumer together promote the idea of a 2 trillion dollar infrastructure package given the state of Washington politics the agreement might be d.o.a. But still we want to think big and ask how should American infrastructure be modernized where should the money be spent also today even keep the nation's longest serving African-American federal judge and author of several landmark civil liberties cases he died this week we'll remember him that's all coming up next on point 1st the news. Live from n.p.r. News in Washington I'm Janine Herbst the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee says a moment of accountability is coming soon for the attorney general N.P.R.'s Carrie Johnson reports William Bart declined to show up for the oversight hearing about how he handled the special counsel report the Justice Department is objecting to terms for the Democratic led hearing lawmakers wanted to ask Attorney General Bill Barr about the report on Russian election interference and Doris decision to clear President Trump but Barr said he would not attend testified earlier this week for 5 hours in the Senate but Gerald NAVL of the Democratic chairman of the House Judiciary panel says he's not giving up now says the average person is not free to ignore a congressional subpoena and neither is the president or the attorney general now says he'll give the Justice Department a little more time but he says he won't hesitate long before he begins a process to hold bar in contempt Carrie Johnson n.p.r. News Washington Turkey's government is critical of a new report on religious freedom calling it a whitewash of those it believes were behind an attempted coup 3 years ago N.P.R.'s Peter Kenyon has more a Turkish foreign ministry spokesman says the report by the u.s. Council on International Religious Freedom amounts to condoning terrorism because it calls followers of the cleric the tool of the lead Muslims facing persecution by the government Turkey blames Golan supporters for a coup effort that failed to topple President range of type aired one N.P.R.'s Peter Kenyon in opposition held North-West Syria's schools health facilities and neighborhoods have been hit by the worst barrel bombing campaign in 15 months this according to the un humanitarian coordinator for the region N.P.R.'s Lynn Neary and has more the targeted villages and towns in northern huh.