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Fun Facts on Plague You are at risk for plague! Well, in the same way, that you are at risk of being struck by lightning… twice or being eaten alive by alligators. Unless you work in the veterinary field in the southwest region of the United States, then it should be a concern albeit not […]
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Would you kiss a rabbit? How much poo do you want to make? Sounds weird but this is an important evolutionary question. A food-to-poo ratio appears pre-set, but it isn’t. For instance, rabbits have such a short intestinal tract that they need to send their food through twice. And how is that accomplished? You guessed […]
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The Red Queen Hypothesis In the second chapter of Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass, Alice encounters the Red Queen who personifies the archetypal chess piece. The Queen wishes to show Alice the chessboard which Alice realizes covers the entire world. The Red Queen says to Alice, “Now, here, you see, it takes all the […]
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You feel the need to climb and then to jump. It is dark, oppressively dark. You have a primal urge to climb, to feel the light upon your face. You find a nearby branch and begin to ascend. Climbing is easier than you remember it. You are faster, stronger than before. As you reach the […]
Continue ReadingHow much poo do you want to make? Sounds weird but this is an important evolutionary question. A food-to-poo ratio appears pre-set, but it isn’t. For instance, rabbits have such a short intestinal tract that they need to send their food through twice. And how is that accomplished? You guessed it, every rabbit eats their […]
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Typhus sounds remotely familiar, right? It is another one of those diseases from the past? Not so fast. It is actually an emerging disease is some areas of the United States. Texas has seen more than 400 cases of murine (flea-borne) typhus since the beginning of 2017. The Greek word typhein meaning “to smoke”, was […]
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We all learned about the “Black Death” in school. The bubonic plague swept across Europe in the Middle Ages, killing nearly two-thirds of the population. It was at that time that rats on ships became associated with plague. It would take almost 500 years for researchers to identify rat fleas infected with the […]
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