Stephen Dubner

Is it possible that one partial solution to the infestation of wild rats in a city like New York The widespread embrace of pet rats?

I first came across Julia Zichello when I read a piece she wrote for a hyperlocal news site called the West Side Rag. If you live on the Upper West Side and don't read the rag, well, I don't even know what to say. Here is the first line of Zichello's piece. Almost a year has passed and I can finally write about it.

I first came across Julia Zichello when I read a piece she wrote for a hyperlocal news site called the West Side Rag. If you live on the Upper West Side and don't read the rag, well, I don't even know what to say. Here is the first line of Zichello's piece. Almost a year has passed and I can finally write about it.

I first came across Julia Zichello when I read a piece she wrote for a hyperlocal news site called the West Side Rag. If you live on the Upper West Side and don't read the rag, well, I don't even know what to say. Here is the first line of Zichello's piece. Almost a year has passed and I can finally write about it.

So Pele died, you think of heartbreak, essentially?

So Pele died, you think of heartbreak, essentially?

So Pele died, you think of heartbreak, essentially?

I want to read a couple sentences from the piece you wrote. I regularly walk the Upper West Side and spot swashbuckling rats at all hours, but other times I find them squashed. I don't exactly feel sad about the dead rats, but I also don't feel nothing. The dead rats make me think about life, death and somewhere stuffed between the pavement and the pellage. I guess pellage is the fur of the rat.

I want to read a couple sentences from the piece you wrote. I regularly walk the Upper West Side and spot swashbuckling rats at all hours, but other times I find them squashed. I don't exactly feel sad about the dead rats, but I also don't feel nothing. The dead rats make me think about life, death and somewhere stuffed between the pavement and the pellage. I guess pellage is the fur of the rat.

I want to read a couple sentences from the piece you wrote. I regularly walk the Upper West Side and spot swashbuckling rats at all hours, but other times I find them squashed. I don't exactly feel sad about the dead rats, but I also don't feel nothing. The dead rats make me think about life, death and somewhere stuffed between the pavement and the pellage. I guess pellage is the fur of the rat.

Yes. Correct. Yeah. There is something about love in there, too. Can you say more about that love?

Yes. Correct. Yeah. There is something about love in there, too. Can you say more about that love?

Yes. Correct. Yeah. There is something about love in there, too. Can you say more about that love?

Are you going to replace them? Maybe that's unfair to say. Are you going to get more rats?

Are you going to replace them? Maybe that's unfair to say. Are you going to get more rats?

Are you going to replace them? Maybe that's unfair to say. Are you going to get more rats?

Because why?

Because why?

Because why?

Julia Zichello, as a scientist living in New York, is by now familiar with what you might call the three main categories of rat. The wild ones who live on the streets, the domesticated ones who live in your home, and the rats that are bred to live and die in research labs.