Aw rats!

Meaning, awwwwww! rats!  So you may be wondering where I'm headed with this.  Well I will tell you.  This is my gift to my stepdad for Father's Day.  A rat, you say? Well I think my mom might fly to Chicago to personally tell me just how she feels about the giant rat I brought into their home...so luckily that's not the case.  Instead, I've sponsored one of these giant rats for a whole year, in the name of my stepdad.  These guys will get to eat bananas for a year to grow strong and smart and capable of doing some incredible things! 

These African giant pouched rats are apparently educated with the rodent equivalent of a Ph.D and have been trained to detect landmines in Africa.  Since they're too light to set off the mines, through their sniffin' skillz, they can clear as much land in 20 minutes as a human can in two days!  Another cool fact, these rats have been trained to help out with increasing Tuberculosis problems in the area.  They sniff out samples provided by TB sufferers and in turn, can screen 40 samples in 7 minutes where as a human can do so in a full day.  Pretty impressive! 

Since my stepdad went on and on about how he's a scientist and damn proud of it (which so am I, he's one hell of an intelligent man and his stories are always fascinating, no matter how many times I've heard them) I figured what better way to celebrate him being a father than to sponsor science in his name?! 

The idea stemmed from this op-ed from the New York Times.  And you can go here to donate or to learn more about the project.  The thing that I love about this gift is that giving meets hilarity, and that in a nutshell sums up my super awesome Stepdad.  So Happy Father's Day, Rod!