Off-road vehicles may be helping to spread a dangerous virus among mice.
Denise Dearing and Rachel Mackelprang at the University of Utah have found that
in an area popular with four-wheel-drive vehicles, three times as many mice as
normal carry hantavirus. In 1993, the virus killed 14 people in Utah.
Dearing suspects that the vehicles鈥� tracks are dividing the habitat into
smaller patches. 鈥淭his would make the mice congregate in denser groups, which
helps the virus spread,鈥� she says.