Matthew Combs, a Fordham University Louis Calder Center Biological Field Station grad student worked with colleagues from Fordham and the Providence College Department of Biology to sequence the genomes of brown rats in Manhattan, and made a surprising discovery: the geography of rats has a genetic correlation, so a geneticist can tell where a rat was born and raised by analyzing its DNA. (more…)
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New York’s rat population has genetically diverged into "uptown" and "downtown" subspecies
It has been a month of supertall news to top them all, with the World Trade Center’s record-breaking 1, 776-foot height possibly getting scooped by a surprise spire in Midtown Manhattan. Now a new rendering from Visualhouse posted at New York Yimby gives an idea of how dramatically the New York City skyline will change just 15 years from now. Read more… 
Here are some things that cost $100 million: Making the film Gravity . Recent U.S. airstrikes in Iraq . And now, a two-story penthouse occupying the 89th and 90th floors of the new super-luxury high-rise at 157 West 57th Street. Read more… 
If Times Square is too gaudy, crowded, and frankly insane for you, then there is another New York tradition worth your New Year’s Eve—one that is, in fact, ending tonight. For the past fifty years, the Pratt Institute has set out its amazing collection of big old steam whistles out on the lawn of its Brooklyn campus . Tonight’s your last chance to steam blast your way into the new year. Read more…