The story of rats: their impact on us, and our impact on them.

Are rats still a threat to our health and food? Do they think? Is it true that wild rats sometimes die, unwounded, from social stress? Can studies of rat societies tell us anything useful about our own social lives? Love them or loathe them, everyone has a rat story. Throughout history vast numbers of rats of many species have shared our space, our food and our diseases; and they continue to do so.