HeroRats

I love to read stories about animals, particularly happy stories about animals. So when I found a story about the HeroRat program on Amusing Planet, I knew I had to write about it. HeroRats is a program started by an organization named APOPO in Sub-Sahara Africa. The organization was looking to find a way to deal with the huge numbers of unexploded landmines that harmed hundreds of innocent citizens every year. A standard program of sweeping with mine sweepers was too slow and dangerous. So the group came up with a novel solution.

What they suggested was using rats to find landmines. Rats have an amazing sense of smell and are light enough not to trip a landmine. The rats were sent into the fields to cover it inch by inch. When the smelled a landmine they would sit up, and receive a food reward. The mine clearers would then enter the field and deactivate the mine. I wonder how many mines they have found over the years but I can imagine that there have been hundreds of lives saved. Over the last couple of years, the rats role has changed to include illness detection. They can sniff out TB faster than any doctor can.

The rats are trained using positive reinforcement for three months and then sent out to serve. The company has found that African Giant Poached Rats work well. They live for a long time and learn quickly. They are also incredibly cute. They are used mostly in Tanzania and Mozambique which had a huge number of mines. You can check out the profiles of these unusual animal heroes at their website. You can also sponsor a rat if you would like. I'm in awe of this program. The rats are treated well and save lives on a daily basis. Both the rats and trainers are heroes in my book.

Difficulty Level Set to Heroic

Warning: This post is whiny and self-deprecating which is my least favorite type of post. I really shouldn't be writing this. Particularly not today. Just be warned.

There is a great line I heard once that once you're on your fifth divorce, you can no longer really blame the other people. The idea being that there is obviously something wrong with you. The first two I can see being not your fault, by five you have to start questioning your own abilities.

Such is the case for me with heroic runs in WoW. I have had five (count them five) unsuccessful heroic attempts in the last week. These are instances that we get into and die so many times that we just give up. This is not after the first or second death by the way. This is normally after ten or so deaths. Where we are all so tired of the same fight that we can just no longer think straight.

Despite Jeff's best assurances I have to wonder how much it is me. I'm on a mission to increase my dps. I was third on the charts last night but I should be higher. I respec'd Destruction this past week in an attempt to move up. In Naxx I moved from seventh to sixth. (and remember we have two healers). When I'm only barely above the healers, that's just not good enough. So today I'm reading, heavily. To see what I can do.

Last night we tried Naxx again before the reset. We were dying repeatedly on trash pulls in the Plague Quarter. We never even came close to the boss. Then we broke into groups and moved to Utgarde Pinnacle. Only one boss down there. Finally after dying too many times to count in the Trophy Room, we moved to Utgarde Keep. And couldn't get past the first boss. Now in all fairness we were going in with a new tank that was slightly undergeared.

But this is not the first time I've had problems in heroics this week. And after this many deaths in one week, I just have to wonder if it's me.

{As you can see, not my best mood. But I warned you.}