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Modern Marvels: Rats

Premieres: Wednesday, April 30th @ 8pm ET/PT on The History Channel (please check local listings)

Rats! They’re some of the most dangerous, destructive and useful animals on Earth. The resilient rat has terrified humankind for centuries, but is the bad rap justified? In this episode of Modern Marvels, we’ll take the viewer on a rollercoaster ride through our love-hate relationship with the rat. We’ll ride along with a Terminix exterminator to get face to face with the creepy creature in a near rat infestation and see the great lengths we take to get rid of the pesky pest. And we’ll tour the Hacco Inc. rodenticide plant to see just how they concoct tasty poisons. But at the Taconic rat breeding facility, we’ll see how hundreds of thousands of rats are purposely bred and hand-raised in high-tech, controlled environments. We’ll get up close and personal with the remarkable rodent as it competes in the Xtreme Rat Challenge and at the annual American Fancy Rat show. We’ll trace their history and role as a vector of deadly diseases, but also explore how they have saved countless lives as a lab rat. And scientists at the State University of New York will show us how a remote controlled rat could become the ultimate rescue animal.