Sunday, November 21, 2010

"Massive plagues of rats swarm across India every fifty years"

io9:
Twice a century, India is attacked by huge rat armies that devour crops in massive destructive waves and leave people without any food. Scientists long dismissed it as an urban myth...until they discovered that it really happens, and why.

A massive bamboo forest covers about 26,000 square kilometers in a region encompassing northeastern India and parts of Bangladesh and Myanmar. For forty-nine out of every fifty years, bamboo is a godsend for farmers, who can use the plant as building material, clothing, and even food. But in the fiftieth year