May 15, 1936. Born in Staten Island, New York. Coming from a broken home, Zindel never knew his father very well. "Mother was a girl in her twenties when my father left. She used to have to fight to get the allowance from him and tried to keep us togethe...

Considered a groundbreaking author of young adult literature as well as one of its most controversial contributors, Paul Zindel is well known as the creator of realistic novels that depict the teenage milieu with authenticity, humor, and panache. In addi...

Critics of adolescent literature generally cite four novels of the late 1960s as helping this subgenre break its ties with its past formulaic romanticism and move dramatically into a much more realistic mode: The Outsiders (1967) by S. E. Hinton, The Con...

Rats are rodents—that is, members of the order Rodentia (see TAXONOMY). Rodents are further classified into the suborder Simplicidentata (with one pair of incisor teeth), these then being divided into three infraorders: the Sciuromorpha (beavers,...

The parent company of KFC and Taco Bell _ still smarting from last year's E. coli scare _ has been forced back into damage-control mode after television cameras caught rats scampering around a restaurant floor.As health inspectors descended on a KFC and Taco Bell eatery...

Researchers seeking new treatments for heart disease managed to grow a rat heart in the lab and start it beating."While it still sounds like science fiction, we've hopefully opened a new door in the notion that we can build these tissues and one day provide...

It all started four years ago when Roger Dier bought a baby rat to feed his pet Indian python. But when he saw the furry little critter squeaking for its life, the lifelong animal lover said he didn't have the heart to...

Researchers in a remote Indonesian jungle have discovered a giant rat that is about five times the size of a typical city rat and a tiny possum, scientists said Monday.Unearthing new species of mammals in the 21st century is considered very rare. The discoveries by...