Now we are ready to start.

Presenter: Hello and welcome! This is Young Professionals. In our studio today is Peter Johnson, a student from the University of Alaska in Anchorage, double majoring in biology and electrical engineering. Hello, Peter!

Peter: Hello!

Presenter: Now, let me see if I understand what you are doing. You are part of a very unusual experiment involving huge rats. Correct?

Peter: Yes, except that this is no longer an experiment, it's a special project. As for the animals involved, they are indeed called the African giant pouched rat. Together with the tail, they can be up to a meter in length.

Presenter: Wow! That's big! When you say "pouched" does that mean they raise their children in the pouch on their bellies like kangaroos? I didn't know there were pouched animals outside of Australia. You said that this rat is African.

Peter: They are called pouched because they can carry a lot of food in their mouths, like squirrels or, rather, hamsters. Their pouches are in their cheeks. They are not for carrying babies.

Presenter: I see! So, what's so special about these rats besides their pouches?

Peter: Two things. First, because they have very poor eyesight, they depend on their senses of smell and hearing which are very highly developed. And the second one is that they are easy to train.

Presenter: Are these the abilities that you use for your project?

Peter: Yes! The project is about training them to find people in destroyed houses during earthquakes.

Presenter: I thought dogs were trained for that. Why rats?

Peter: That's a common question. Why rats if we have dogs, and nowadays, robots as well. Well, these rats are smaller than dogs and they are used to living underground in the dark, crawling through tunnels and finding things with the help of their amazing noses. And they are a lot cheaper, smarter, faster and more flexible than robots. They use their sense of smell to quickly find humans, they send us a signal and then can find their way back to the surface on their own. A robot might get stuck in the rubble.

Presenter: What kind of a signal do they send you?

Peter: Well, our rats wear a backpack with a tiny camera which can send a video feed to a rescuer's phone. It also has a microphone and a speaker, making it possible for a rescue team to talk to a victim. We can't teach the rats to talk, so we need some way to communicate with any survivors from under the ruins. The rats also wear a vest with a microswitch that they are trained to pull when they locate someone. That sends us a signal.

Presenter: Amazing! So, what is your role in this project?

Peter: I started designing this backpack when I was just a freshman at university. So, it's been three years already. The problem is, the connection is often poor under collapsed buildings. There will always be places where neither GPS, nor video stream will be accessible. So, the challenge is to use multiple technologies, including a low-⁠frequency signal that should be able to travel through the rubble to transmit the location of a victim. And all this equipment has to be really small and lightweight to make it easier for the rats.

Presenter: You also major in biology. How does it help you in this project?

Peter: I love animals! I want the backpacks to be comfortable for them. I also help with their training.

Presenter: How do you train them?

Peter: The part of training that I'm involved in has to do with sending them a signal - it's a beep which tells the rat to return to the surface and receive a reward. Peanuts or a mix of bananas and avocados. They love this.

Presenter: What's the final goal of the project?

Peter: To train enough of these rats to use them in this country as well as send them to other countries where earthquakes take place.

Presenter: Thank you for coming and good luck with your project!

Peter: Thank you!