To most people, the rat is vile and villainous. But not to everyone! We hear from a scientist who befriended rats and another who worked with them in the lab — and from the animator who made one the hero of a Pixar blockbuster. (Part three of a three-part series, “Sympathy for the Rat.”)

SOURCES:
- Bethany Brookshire, author of Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains
- Jan Pinkava, creator and co-writer of "Ratatouille," and director of the Animation Institute at the Film Academy Baden-Württemberg.
- Julia Zichello, evolutionary biologist at Hunter College.

RESOURCES:
- "Weekend Column: Rat’s End, or, How a Rat Dies," by Julia Zichello (West Side Rag, 2024).
- Pests: How Humans Create Animal Villains by Bethany Brookshire (2022).
- "Rats: the history of an incendiary cartoon trope," by Archie Bland (The Guardian, 2015).
- "Catching the Rat: Understanding Multiple and Contradictory Human-Rat Relations as Situated Practices," by Koen Beumer (Society & Animals, 2014).
- "Effects of Chronic Methylphenidate on Dopamine/Serotonin Interactions in the Mesolimbic DA System of the Mouse," by Bethany Brookshire (Wake Forest University, 2010).
- "A New Deal For Mice," by C.C. Little (Scientific American, 1935).

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