Study Examines Disease Potential of NYC's Rats

For the first time, a team of researchers tested rats in Manhattan and cataloged the viruses and bacteria they carry. The verdict is not pretty — or clean, USA Today reports.

Columbia University researchers spent a year collecting 133 rats. They found that the specimens were carrying food-borne illnesses like salmonella, as well as fever-inducing illnesses.

Most alarmingly (as The New York Times noted), "novel" pathogens and bacteria were discovered — ones that had never been seen before in New York, or to science.

The findings were published in the journal mBio Tuesday with the title "Detection of Zoonotic Pathogens and the Characterization of Novel Viruses Carried by Commensal Rattus norvegicus in New York City."