In 1943, Walt Disney helped combat malaria by making an animated film called The Winged Scourge. This short film starred the seven dwarfs and taught children that mosquitoes transmit malaria, which is a very bad disease. While not specifically mentioned in the film, malaria is caused by several species of the protozoan Plasmodium, of which Plasmodium vivax and Plasmodium falciparum are the most common. The most serious infections involve P. falciparum, which causes a higher incidence of complications and death. The short film advocated the killing of mosquitoes to stop the disease.


Luckily, by 1951, malaria was finally eliminated in the United States (eliminated means that no new cases arose in the country for 3 years). Today, oral chloroqui ...

Rattlesnakes are a group of venomous snakes native to the Americas known for their loud rattling tail. The tip of their tail, known as the rattle (middle), vibrates to deter predators or serves as a warning to passers-by.

The rattle is composed of a series of hollow, interlocked segments made of keratin, which are created by modifying the scales that cover the tip of the tail. The contraction of special "shaker" muscles in the tail causes these segments to vibrate against one another, making the rattling noise (which is amplified because the segments are hollow) in a behavior known as tail vibration. The muscles that cause the rattle to shake are some of the fastest known, firing 50 times per second on average, sustained for up to three hour ...

Christmas Island is a unique natural habitat located in the Indian Ocean with many endemic species. The national park covers two-thirds of the island, which has been referred to as the Galapagos of the Indian Ocean.

Many people are aware of the red crabs whose mass migration to the sea has been described as one of the wonders of the natural world. Christmas Island has many other species of crabs, including the impressive robber crabs (Gecarcoidea natalis). These may be the largest land-dwelling arthropod on Earth.

Together these abundant land crabs clear the forests of leaf litter and maintain burrows that prevent soil becoming compacted, creating an open and diverse forest.

This thriving natural system, however, was disrupted by an invasive ...

Anyone who has ever taken a shot of hard liquor (tequila, brandy) can tell you: it burns on the way down. But it's not the alcohol itself that's burning your throat. Instead, the ethanol in the liquid is making your throat's VR1 heat receptors (left) more sensitive, prompting them to perceive your own body temperature as hot.

Normally, the VR1 receptors activate at 42° Celsius, but alcohol lowers this threshold to around 34° C, which is 4° C less than your bodies regulated temperature.

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A living, swimming ghost fish has been seen live for the first time ever.

The fish, part of the family Aphyonidae, was caught on camera during an ongoing National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) exploration by the ship Okeanos Explorer. The exploration centers on the deep ocean at Mariana Trench Marine National Monument, a protected area spanning 95,216 square miles (246,608 square kilometers) east of the Philippines.

The secretive fish was swimming along a ridge 8,202 feet (2,500 meters) down, according to NOAA. The animal is about 4 inches (10 centimeters) long, with translucent, scale-less skin and eerie, colorless eyes. No fish in the family Aphyonidae has ever been seen alive before.

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Stan Larkin (pictured on the right), who's now 25, was diagnosed with familial cardiomyopathy. This form of disease results in the heart having difficulty pumping enough blood through the body. Faced with a lack of compatible heart donors, Stan underwent an operation in 2014 to remove his failing heart and replace it with an external total artificial heart, dubbed the Freedom portable driver.

This battery-powered device uses compressed air to pump blood around the body in the same way a heart does, and as the name suggests, it is portable and only weighs 6 kilograms (13 pounds). The device does an incredible job at keeping the patient in a healthy condition while a donor heart becomes available, but it isn’t considered a long-term option. ...

The octopus stinkhorn mushroom (Clathrus archeri) looks like an octopus and stinks like rotten flesh in order to attract the flies that spread its spores. This fungus is indigenous to Australia, including Tasmania, and New Zealand, and an introduced species in Europe, North America and Asia.

As shown in the video, the young fungus erupts from a sub-erumpent egg by forming into four to seven elongated slender arms initially erect and attached at the top. The arms then unfold to reveal a pinkish-red interior covered with a dark-olive spore-containing gleba. In maturity it smells of putrid flesh.

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After a broken neck left him quadriplegic, Ian Burkhart was told he would never be able to use his hands. Now he can grasp a bottle and pick up a credit card by using a computer plugged directly into his brain. Special software is able to decode his thoughts and convert them into electrical signals in his hand, bypassing the damaged nerves in his spine. Now Ian has regained an amazing degree of control over his hand, each movement stimulated by his own thoughts.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0I_q_dFtPhU ...