 soft, smooth, color usually brown with black intermixed, to gray to black above with underside white, gray, or black. With muzzle pointed, eyes large, ears large (can be pulled over eyes) and almost naked. Tail scaly, uniformly dark, /longer than head and body combined. Adult droppings up to 1/2″ (12.5 mm) long, spindle-shaped, with pointed ends.
2. Droppings. Fresh droppings are soft and moist whereas, old droppings are dried and hard; adult roof’s about 1/2″ (12-13 mm) with pointed ends vs. Norway’s about 3/4″ (18-20 mm) with blunt ends.
4. Rub marks or dark, greasy markings on vertical surfaces. Fresh marks are soft, greasy, and easily smeared whereas, old marks are with the grease dry and flaky. Swing marks often present around rafters.
5. Burrows. Not common, but if present they are shallow. They usually nest in or under vegetation.
6. Runways. Travel routes may not be apparent outside because they may travel along fences or on overhead power or telephone lines. Indoors, they usually move along walls, stacked merchandise, etc. Active runways with greasy appearance, free of dust and cobwebs, with fresh tracks and/or droppings.
7. Damaged goods. Roof rats prefer fruits, vegetables, and cereal whereas, Norway rats prefer meat fish and cereal.
 (2) Hispid cotton rat (Sigmodon hispidus) with tail about half head-body length combined and less heavy (weight 2 3/4-7 oz/80-198 g), and fur coarse and grizzled, grayish above with mixed buff, black, and whitish below. (3) House mouse (Mus musculus) with tail about as long as head plus body, smaller (about 1/2-1 oz/14-28 g), shorter (head, body, and tail 5.25-7.5-/6.5-10.2 cm), droppings 1/8-1/4″ (3-6 mm) long, rod-shaped, with pointed ends. (4) Most native rats and mice with tail hairy, hairs short or long, or if tail almost naked, it is also annulate (appears to be of ringlike segments).
BIOLOGY. Roof rats reach sexual maturity in 2-5 months. Pregnancy lasts an average of 22 days. The young are blind and naked at birth, with hair appearing in about 7 days and eyes opening in 12-14 days. They are weaned at about 3-4 weeks. The average number of litters is 4-6 per year, each containing an average of 6-8 young. Adults on an average live 9-12 months.
A roof rat requires 1/2-1 oz (14-28 g) of food and 1 oz (30 ml) of water each day, with the water often coming from its food. This results in about 30-180 droppings and 1/2 oz/3 teaspoons (16 cc) of urine per day.
Historically, bubonic plague has been associated with the roof rat and its fleas, which move from infested rats to man. Fortunately, plague has not been found in rats in the United States for many years. Other transmitted disease organisms include murine typhus via fleas (also probably via droppings and urine), infectious jaundice/leptospirosis/Weil’s Disease via urine in water or food, rat-bite fever via bites, trichinosis via undercooked pork, and food poisoning or Salmonellosis via droppings. Another problem is tropical rat mite dermatitis which is caused by these mites when they feed on humans.
HABITS. Roof rats are primarily nocturnal in habit and they are very cautious. Although they constantly explore their surroundings, they shy away from new objects and changes. Roof rats prefer to nest in the upper parts of structures but may be found under buildings as well as occasionally in basements and sewers. Outdoors, they prefer to nest in higher places such as in trees but may occasionally be found in burrows in or under vegetation around the structure. These are social animals but less so than Norway rats. Several nests may be located within a given area. An opening of greater than 1/2″ (12 mm) is required for entry into buildings.
This is a test of the "Current mood" bug thingy blah.
Testish - cartman cluster, no blank line.
crschmidt - santa, no blank line.
Web client consistently shows the correct mood list if and only if I click the "..." that links to the full mode.
If I click update journal, then click the "click here" link, it shows a blank line underneath the "none, or other" line.
Janinedog has similar issues, only it's the exact reverse.
dougb doesn't see the problem on iJournal on OSX, nor through the web client, either the... way or the UpdateJournal->Click here way.
hmmm. just tried the LiveLizard client (for Mozilla) and it has 2 blank spaces at the top, but neither make the blank line.The university’s Clinical and Translational Science Institute, which helps support research in various behind-the-scenes ways, awarded funds from the National Institutes of Health.
Scientific health researchers at the University of Minnesota will have an easier go at funding their research projects after the National Institutes of Health awarded the school a five-year, $42.6 million grant.
The federal grant, the university said Friday, was received by its Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CSTI), which, among other uses, helps develop the U’s biotechnology research projects to the point of clinical trials. Grant money comes from the National Institute of Health’s Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) program.
This isn’t the first time the U’s CSTI was the recipient of CSTA money. In 2011, the institute received a five-year, $51 million grant, which helped fund more than 170 clinical and translational research projects conducted by the University of Minnesota and community researchers.
Some of those “structures” Blazar referred to include course programs. Blazar said that the courses range in who they target – different classes for people at different career levels, from PhD candidates to more senior university faculty – and in what their focus is – from career development to research strategies, and more.
Grant money also goes toward day-to-day resources including salary support for staff, and to helping get research from the “bench to the patient,” said Blazar. This encompasses offering study design analysis, easing administrative burdens of studies, bringing in experts from the patent and technology transfer industry to provide advice, and otherwise aiding in developing a pathway to the clinic.
Additionally, the grant funding is used for community outreach. Blazar said they look to target underrepresented populations, including children, older individuals and those with addictions to heroin and opioids. Case in point: the opioid health crisis is the focus of one beneficiary of the initial $51 million grant. The original grant also helped fund a rapid infection diagnostic tool and improving health outcomes for incarcerated women and their families.
Money from the 2011 award enabled her to organize a community forum on opioid use. It brought together people from the rural community and Minnesota’s tribal nation to provide information and engage them in a dialogue.
“[The grant helped] launch my career in terms of community outreach,” said Laura Palombi, a pharmacist who specializes in public health. Without the original $51 million grant, Palombi believes an opium awareness forum she created in northern Minnesota would never have happened.
“[The program is] really giving new researchers an opportunity,” she said.
Since the first grant-assisted forum in the fall of 2015, Palombi has organized a forum every couple of months – not all of which, though, were on opioids. She’s already expecting fierce competition for the new $42.6 million grant money.
Those plans include helping partners of CTSI, as the institute is part of a consortium of entities that collaborate on health goals and works closely with key figures in the Minnesota health scene. One of their approximately 19 area partners is the Hennepin County Medical Center. CTSI also collaborates with the Mayo Clinic.
Moreover, Blazar noted that between money awarded to the Mayo Clinic and CTSI, $91.5 million in federal clinical and translational research funding has been infused across the state in the last six months. He said that money, in particular, was aiding the state’s efforts to be a major national player in medicine.
Blazar said they initially applied for the grant in January 2016, were told to strengthen certain aspects, resubmitted the application and were approved last summer. He explained the committee wanted to see approaches to shorten human subject approval time, expanded workforce diversity, and an overarching vision of what CTSI wanted to do.
The U’s proposal, he added, emphasized the school’s and region’s historical significance in medicine. Upon receiving the first year’s worth of grant funding in March, Blazar said CTSI is ready to continue their mission.
Well, this one was $150 and they can be more or less expensive just depending on what a customer wants done. My dad was a rodeo cowboy and so I grew up around saddlemakers and leatherworkers and horseshoers and things. I may not have always done it, but I've always been around it. For a lot of my life I tried to get away from that and fit in