\According to Scholastic News, HeroRats are being trained to sniff out TB in patients. The theory behind this new project is the fact that rats can smell up to 1 million scents. In certain African countries, TB infection rate and resources available to detect the disease are limited. By the time TB is diagnosed in patients, the disease can spread to countless others. HeroRats were previously used to detect landmines and have successfully detected 16,000 land mines in Africa. Many people give rats a bad rap; it is true that rats carry disease, but so do many other species of animals. These rats are helping diagnose TB cases at a faster rate than a human technician. The rats can process mucus samples at rapid rates. In a 10 minute time period the rats can process the same amount of samples it would take a human worker 2 days to process. The HeroRats team hope to see other diseases added to the list than rats can detect.
This is an interesting topic and one that would cross current events with medical innovation. I would love for my future students to read a news story like this and brainstorm medical inventions that would beneficial in the future. Students are never to early to imagine the next big idea and who knows,we may very well be educating the next medical breakthrough scientist.
Mrs. J
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