So I already had several really good reasons to *never* want to visit Guam
- snakes were imported and flourished <do NOT like snakes> - the snakes wiped out the indigenous bird population (brown tree-climbing snakes - blended in with tree limbs. were able to eat birds plus their eggs.) now something like one snake per 5 square meters I've heard. - wiping out the birds allowed the spiders to flourish. <eeeeek> and n-o-w <drum roll>, - a medical journal report (heard about on radio) was studying why there seems to be an order-of-magnitude higher incidence of degenerative brain disease in the human population on Guam. also that the disease is really vicious and seems like a combination of Alzheimer's, Lou Gehrig's, and something else nasty (forget). they found out the native human population formerly ate the meat of a particular bat <yukkk>. the bat has now been hunted virtually into extinction. somehow they were able to determine that the bats' diet included a particular plant which has an especially-potent neurotoxin. apparently this toxin, when ingested by humans, caused the brain disease. The scientists are now trying to find and isolate the neurotoxin, thinking this may give them some insight into preventing or treating the diseases someday. Ah, Guam, lovely tropical paradise... BTW they mentioned various medical problems in Africa and other "third world" regions which may turn out to be due to people eating what's euphemistically called "bush meat" - e.g. monkeys. <shudder> -Ben ______________________________________________________________________ Get the mailserver that powers this list at http://www.coolfusion.com Archives: http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected]/ Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/index.cfm?sidebar=lists
