We hear about people being burned at the stake, frozen, and crushed with unbelievable amounts of outside force. But what really happens to the human body when it’s subjected to such extremes?

10Acceleration

G-forces never really affected humans until as late as the World War I, when pilots began mysteriously losing consciousness mid-flight. Thanks to US Air Force officer John Stapp, we then learned a lot more about how g-forces hit the human body, and the research took some serious dedication to the cause.

Stapp subjected himself to forces of up to 35 g, which is the equivalent of accelerating at 343 meters per second squared (1,125 ft/s²). His bones cracked and broke, and his dental fillings flew out. But the real effect, he determined, was on his blood.

When acceleration happens along a horizontal axis, the body tolerates the g-forces comparatively well because blood flow stays on that same horizontal plane. When g-forces act on the body in a vertical manner, things don’t go so well. Beyond a certain level (about 4 or 5 g for most people), our systems just don’t have enough strength to pump blood, and it all draws down to our lower extremities.

Negative g-forces cause the same problems, interfering with blood flow and making too much blood accumulate very quickly in one place. That’s where g-force suits come in. Air bladders in the suits expand with enough force to keep the blood where it belongs, preventing pilots from losing consciousness.

Stapp survived a final run in which he accelerated to 1,017 kilometers (632 mi) per hour, stopped in one second, and weighed more than 3,500 kilograms (7,700 lb) for a brief moment. He ultimately died peacefully at home at the age of 89.

9Pressure

Decompression sickness, commonly known as “the bends,” happens when the human body feels a sudden drop in surrounding pressure. Blood can no longer efficiently dissolve gases like nitrogen. Instead, the gases remain in the bloodstream as bubbles. In severe cases, the bubbles accumulate in blood vessels and block flow, resulting in dizziness, confusion, or even death.

The milder form of decompression sickness, DCS I, usually results in joint pain and tissue swelling. Divers who subject themselves to pressure changes on a regular basis can build up an undetected case of the bends that leads to permanent joint damage. DCS II is the type that can kill. Those stricken by this type experience conditions such as vertigo, paralysis, and shock.

8Cold

When the body’s temperature drops to about 30 degrees Celsius (86 °F), all bodily functions slow down. Fatigue, clumsiness, and a delay in reacting to outside stimuli are among the first symptoms.

One of the first systems to fail around the 30-degree mark is thermoregulation, or the body’s ability to maintain its core temperature on its own. The heart will also gradually slow, along with lung function, until the rest of the body starves of oxygen. In addition, the renal system quickly fails, flooding the body with a diluted version of urine. This substance leaks into the blood and organs, causing shock or other heart problems.

The reduced metabolism and decreased demand on the body’s systems enables some people to survive extreme cases of hypothermia and recover completely when properly warmed.

7Heat

Heatstroke happens when the body’s internal temperature rises above 40 degrees Celsius (104 °F). Classic heatstroke develops slowly with exposure to heat, such as during a summer heat wave. Exertional heatstroke hits people who perform highly physical tasks in hot conditions, such as industrial workers and athletes. With either type, only about 20 percent of sufferers survive without treatment, and many who do survive suffer some degree of brain damage.

Humidity increases the chances of heatstroke by keeping sweat from evaporating, slowing the body’s ability to rid itself of heat. Once the core temperature reaches 42 degrees Celsius (107 °F) for as little as 45 minutes, cells break down. Tissues swell, and the digestive lining weakens, allowing new toxins into the body. In milder cases, called heat exhaustion, only the circulatory system slows. With full heatstroke, however, the nervous system malfunctions as well, causing confusion, convulsions, and dizziness.

6Fire

Hot air and humidity can push the body to its limits. But fire, unsurprisingly, takes the body several steps further, through damage, death, and disintegration.

Researchers at the University of West Florida are setting fire to donated corpses to document just what happens to the body. The average human body burns for seven hours. The outer skin goes first, crisping and crackling before it burns away pretty quickly. The dermal layers of skin don’t last much longer, vanishing after about five minutes.

By then, the fire has burned away your shell and starts on the fat layer. Fat is an effective fuel as long as flammable material such as clothing or the wood of a pyre acts like a candle wick. Fat melts away, absorbs into the wick, and then burns for hours. Flames also dry out muscles, contracting them and making the body move.

The fire typically burns itself out when only bones remain, unless they break to expose the marrow. Teeth don’t burn, either.

The research mimicked the fires from crime scenes. During cremation, however, fires roar much hotter, and the body burns more quickly. Most cremation fires burn at 600–800 degrees Celsius (1,110–1,470°F). Yet even at these temperatures, it can take several hours to completely reduce the body to ash.

According to the researchers, a burning body smells exactly like pork ribs on the barbecue.

5Starvation

We all know starvation kills, but the specifics are especially horrifying. The stomach physically shrinks, which can make it uncomfortable to start eating normal amounts again even if food arrives to save you. The heart and heart muscles also physically shrink, restricting the amount they can do and dropping blood pressure. Prolonged starvation causes anemia. In women, menstruation can stop completely.

When your body lacks enough sugars to burn, it start breaking down fat. This might sound desirable enough, but when stored fat breaks down quickly, it releases compounds called ketones along with energy. Ketones build up, leading to nausea and exhaustion, not to mention bad breath.

Your bones may permanently weaken after temporary starvation. Perhaps more surprising is the permanent effect on the brain. Without vital nutrients like potassium and phosphorus, the brain malfunctions. You may physically lose gray matter in the brain—even if you resume eating, some of the loss is permanent, making the impaired brain function permanent as well.

Growing children and teens can suffer chronic health issues later in life, such as the inability for a woman to carry a baby to term. Perhaps most weirdly, people suffering from long-term starvation often grow a full coat of tiny, soft hairs called lanugo to help the body regulate temperature.

4Height

Even if you’re not afraid of heights, you’ve likely experienced a spinning, sick feeling when you look off the top of a skyscraper. This is vertigo, and it’s more than just psychological.

Balance is a tricky thing. When we’re on the ground, we orient ourselves using stationary, steady objects. When we’re at the top of a 30-story building, however, that doesn’t work. The nearest stationary object (besides the floor beneath your feet) is so far away that your body can’t use it to reassure itself that it, too, is stationary.

The building’s sway adds an additional problem. When you’re up high enough, everything sways slightly, and our bodies detect it even if our conscious minds can’t. The higher we get, the more the sway, and the harder for us to regulate our balance. If the effect becomes too great, it can interfere with our own center of gravity.

People bad at estimating distances suffer from more powerful acrophobia. A California State University study looked at how people estimated buildings’ heights. Those who overestimated the height of a building had stronger reactions to standing at the top. Findings suggest a direct link between perception and fear.

3Chemicals

Hydrogen sulfide is pretty nasty stuff. You know it as the smell of rotting eggs, and in high amounts, it may have killed off the dinosaurs and a huge portion of other prehistoric life. But all living things produce the chemical in very small amounts, and it helps regulate the rate at which our internal processes function. Most recently, it’s been found to have a new use—putting mice into a state of suspended animation.

When administered at the proper dose, hydrogen sulfide slows the body’s metabolic rate and drops the core temperature to well below the hypothermia threshold. All bodily functions, including circulation and pulmonary activity, almost shut down.

In animal tests, hydrogen sulfide suppresses normal body function, perhaps forming an invaluable tool in slowing the damage done by burns and illnesses until a person can receive proper treatment.

2Radiation

Radioactive decay releases energy into the immediate environment. That energy interacts with the cells of the body, either killing them outright or causing them to mutate. Mutations develop into cancer, and some types of radioactive material hit specific body parts especially hard. For example, radioactive iodine accumulates in the thyroid gland, causing thyroid cancer, especially in children.

It takes a relatively huge amount of radiation exposure to significantly increase a person’s risk of developing cancer. The standard person is exposed to between 0.24 and 0.3 rem of radiation in a year. For your risk of developing cancer to increase by 0.5 percent, you need about 10 rem.

At the much higher level of 200 rem, radiation sickness kicks in. Radiation sickness causes short-term, instant effects like vomiting, a reduction of red blood cells, and damage to bone marrow. This bone damage causes another, more latent problem—bone marrow is responsible for producing platelets, which are essential in blood clotting.

1Loneliness

Feeling lonely is normal. Even in the most crowded of rooms, we can still feel an overwhelming sense of loneliness if we connect with no one. But chronic loneliness can have a very real effect on our bodies.

According to University of Chicago psychologists, people who report being lonely show severely suppressed immune systems for an interesting reason. Since lonely people view the world as a dangerous, unfriendly place, their immune systems fixate on fighting bacterial infections. This leaves them unable to produce as many antiviral antibodies, leaving them consequently more susceptible to viral illnesses.

They are also more susceptible to high blood pressure, as hardened arteries have also been linked to chronic loneliness, and difficulty sleeping. Higher stress leaves the lonely more vulnerable to heart disease and strokes.

+Water

We all know the dangers of dehydration, but we hear less about the dangers of drinking water to excess.

Water intoxication causes all kinds of problems, the most deadly being hyponatremia. When the kidneys can’t get rid of the extra water, they push it into the bloodstream, where it dilutes the blood and causes a severe drop in electrolytes. Without enough salt in the body, you suffer from headaches, exhaustion, vomiting, and disorientation.

Once the bloodstream can no longer handle it, the water rushes into cells, which swell. This becomes deadly when the cells lack room for expansion, such as in the brain and spine. You can then suffer from brain swelling, coma, seizures, and ultimately death.

You may also run into another problem from drinking too much. Water can contain pollutants. When you regularly drink more water than the safely recommended amount (which is actually rather less than the long-touted eight glasses per day), the pollutants can build to a level with which the body can no longer cope.

The Land Down Under. Sweltering heat and a menagerie of obscure and bizarre creatures has led the smallest continent in the world to be considered a land of danger and death. Tales of man-eating sharks that put Jaws to shame, poisonous spiders that inhabit shoes, and crocodiles that resemble the dinosaurs that once walked the Earth are rooted in tradition. Yet, one cannot help but wonder: Just how dangerous are these creatures?

In the following list, with no particular order, we will attempt to dispel the notion that Australia’s fauna are simply creatures to be avoided at all costs. Rather, they’re the victims of media hype. Please comment with any creatures you feel were missed, or share your own stories of encounters with them.

10 Blue-Ringed Octopus

Perhaps the most unassuming creature on the list, merely the size of a pencil, the blue-ringed octopus has gained notoriety for its vivid coloration and paralyzing toxins. Often cited as an example for the adage “Everything in Australia Can Kill You,” these cephalopods have, in fact, garnered a reputation far exceeding their exploits.

Despite the strength of their toxins, only three deaths can be attributed to the octopuses’ bite, one of which did not even occur in Australia.^[1] Note, however, that being bitten is still a serious matter and potentially fatal. So, spare a thought for the solitary creatures, and make sure you keep your hands to yourself when exploring tide pools.

9 Sharks

If Finding Nemo has taught us anything, it’s that one whiff of blood sends sharks into a murderous feeding frenzy. And there is some truth to that. Sharks are apex predators which will bite everything from unsuspecting fish to intrusive surfers. In fact, the likelihood of being attacked and killed by a shark is higher in Australia (the land of beaches and sun) than it is in any other country. How likely, you ask? Well, statistically, the odds of being attacked by a shark are one in 2,794,600, according to reports.

Those aren’t the worst odds, one must concede, especially when faced with the knowledge that over 70 people died between the years of 2008 and 2017 at the hands (hooves?) of horses and cows, compared to only 26 fatalities by sharks and other marine animals.^[2] In fact, on average, only two people are fatally attacked by sharks in Australia per year. So, when in Australia, make sure you enjoy the beach, but always remember to swim between the flags!

8 Redback Spider

Nothing sends chills up one’s spine more than the thought of eight skeletal legs crawling their way across your skin, and this nightmare is very much a reality for many Australians. Approximately 2,700 spider species have been formally described on the continent, which is not even a third of the estimated extant species. Of these species, one of the most recognized and prevalent is the redback spider, so named for the distinctive red stripe on its abdomen. This creature inhabits urban areas, often found in garden sheds or similarly undisturbed locations, where it uses the toxins in its venom to subdue insects.

This venom is strong enough to kill humans who are unfortunate enough to get bitten, though there were no deaths in Australia from confirmed spider bites from 1979 to 2016.^[3] As is the case with most spiders, even the venomous redbacks are harmless unless provoked or disturbed, and they’re more likely to attempt to flee the threat or even play dead, as opposed to biting.

7 Cassowary

The formidable-looking cassowary is arguably less well-known compared to other creatures on this list. This imposing bird hails from the same family as the ostrich and emu, standing up to 2 meters (6.6 ft) tall and weighing as much as 76 kilograms (168 lb). Of the three species, only the southern cassowary lives in Australia, where it inhabits dense rainforests, avoiding potential threats and existing, primarily, off berries and seeds.

Yet despite its solitary and mainly frugivorous nature, the bird possesses a dagger-like claw on its feet that can grow up to 13 centimeters (5 in) in length and can be wielded with potentially fatal results, making it one of only a handful of birds to have been directly responsible for a recorded fatality.^[4] Nevertheless, fatalities are relatively rare, although one recently occurred in Florida. Remember that most wild animals will avoid humans, rather than engage with them.

6 Saltwater Crocodiles

The estuarine, or saltwater, crocodile is the largest crocodilian in the world, growing between 4.6 and 5.2 meters (15–17 ft) on average, with some male specimens reaching 7 meters (23 ft)! The crocodiles’ habitat is widespread, stretching over much of Northern Australia, where it grows to such staggering sizes on a diet consisting of anything from fish and turtles to buffalo and livestock.

The “saltie” is also notorious for its reputation as a man-eater, though such rogue animals have been reported more often in Asian countries such as Malaysia. Yet, despite having been responsible for 14 deaths in the Northern Territory between 2005 and 2014,^[5] saltwater crocodiles aren’t known to attack humans unless their territory is encroached upon.

5 Sydney Funnel-Web Spider

What creature has eight legs, can grow to have a 10-centimeter (4 in) leg span, and looks like it belongs on the set of a horror movie? If you answered a funnel-web spider, you’d be right. Of the 35 species of funnel-web, the most dangerous to humans is the Sydney funnel-web, found in urban and garden areas in and around Sydney and often encountered in shoes that have been left outside overnight. Within the species, the male spiders are notably more dangerous, reputed to inject a venom six times more potent than their female counterparts.

The secret ingredient is a toxin dubbed “robustoxin,” which attacks the nervous system and, according to arachnid curator Dr. Robert Raven, can kill a human in less than 15 minutes. However, despite the apparent danger toward humans, and the strength of their venom, Sydney funnel-webs can only be held responsible for 13 recorded fatalities, with no deaths occurring since the introduction of an antivenom in 1981.^[6] As with most species on the list, if we simply exercise caution and common sense, we can easily avoid harm.

4 Dingo

As Australia’s largest mammalian carnivore—standing about the height of a medium dog—the dingo has become a tourist attraction in its native country. Most prevalent along the eastern and southern coastlines and throughout Central Australia,^[7] dingoes have long held a place in the folklore of Australia’s traditional owners, commonly referenced in Dreamtime stories. With their naturally inquisitive nature, interactions between humans and dingoes have become commonplace, as many zoos and sanctuaries have begun to offer close-quarters experiences. However, in the wild, the same result is not often achieved. As is the case with many fatal wildlife encounters, encroaching upon the dingo’s natural habitat has been the cause of both recorded deaths from the species.

Perhaps most famous is the death of Azaria Chamberlain, a nine-week-old baby snatched by a dingo while on vacation with her family, an incident which became a worldwide-publicized murder case in the early 1980s. The only other fatal attack occurred in 2001, when nine-year-old Clinton Gage was mauled and killed by a dingo on Fraser Island, a popular tourist attraction due to its population of “pure” dingo packs. Yet, for a creature that has become a scapegoat for human foolishness, two deaths seems an almost unexpectedly low number, as tourism and lack of food continues to lead to aggression within a usually curious native species.

3 Cone Snail

Probably the most aesthetically pleasing creature on this list, the cone snail (also known as the cone shell) appears, at first glance, to be no more than a patterned shell. Inhabiting warm waters throughout the Indian and Pacific oceans (with around 166 species thought to inhabit Australian waters), the predatory snails propel barbed, venom-coated darts at the small fish and worms that make up its diet.

Although the toxins are designed to paralyze its prey before it is consumed, some of the larger species can prove harmful even to humans, with the venom’s toxicity compared to that of a snake. Despite the potential danger of the creatures and their deceptive appearance, only 36 people have been fatally stabbed in the past 90 years,^[8] with only one of these occurring in waters surrounding Australia. Cone snails are nevertheless a potentially deadly reminder not to touch the wildlife.

2 Stonefish

Taking the next spot on our list is another ambush predator, commonly found in the waters off the eastern coast of Australia. As its name suggests, the stonefish resembles a mossy rock on the seabed as it lies in wait for an unwary fish to pass by. Similar to the fish whose paths diverge with the predator, any human unfortunate enough to tread on the stonefish’s back will receive a nasty shock. Thirteen spines lining the dorsal fin are raised when pressure is placed upon them, injecting a highly toxic venom into any would-be attackers.

So strong is its venom that the stonefish has been handed the dubious honor of being the most venomous fish in the world.^[9] However, the introduction of antivenom in 1959 and a rise in public awareness have ensured no recorded Australian deaths in recent times, though stings are relatively common. And If this and the previous entry weren’t enough to convince you never to step foot in the water again, just see what’s next . . .

1 Stingrays

While some creatures on this list may seem, in name or appearance, to be unassuming, the same is not true for the horrifyingly named stingray, containing such families as the thorntail and whiptail stingrays. Although these flat marine animals can grow quite large, reaching several meters in length and hundreds of kilograms in weight, they live on a diet of mollusks and crustaceans, which they hunt on the sea floor. When threatened, however, the rays can lash out with a tail spine, stabbing and injecting venom.

While their presence attracts divers all over the world, Australians will most likely remember the role a stingray played in the death of beloved wildlife conservationist Steve Irwin, who was fatally stabbed while filming a documentary in Queensland in 2006. Although Irwin’s death was one of only two fatal attacks in Australia since 1945, nonfatal attacks are very common, though easily avoided, with NSW Ambulance reporting 116 incidents between late 2013 and late 2016.^[10]

A recent high-school graduate living in Australia, born and raised in England, who loves reading, writing and sports.

Real life Viruses and Hollywood Viruses are different. Real life Viruses have unpleasant symptoms. Hollywood Viruses have mutant-zombie-vampires with anger issues. Real life viruses can be controlled with handwashing and staying indoors. Hollywood viruses are controlled by running around with guns, controlled explosions and occasionally nuclear weapons. Real Life Viruses are a bit boring. Hollywood Viruses can be awesome. So, after you’ve washed your hands, why not sit down, relax and see how the experts do it.

10 The Omega Man, 1971

Charlton Heston is the last man on earth, pretty much. One of the few survivors of a global pandemic, caused by biological warfare. A lone research scientist (Heston) injects himself with a vaccine of his own design, which seems to work.

However, the solitude of being the only survivor starts to drive Heston a bit mad, and he spends most of his time barricaded inside his apartment, which is stacked high with guns.
So far, so realistic.

However, when he is captured by these virus infected mutants, who he calls The Family, instead of attacking him they put him on trial, or at least a mock trial.
Now it is getting a little surreal.

The Family is run by the head mutant, a former TV anchor-man, played by Anthony Zerbe, who has a disturbing Manson vibe about him.

There’s a lot of other weird stuff too, including a lot of spear-throwing (unnecessary it would seem, given the abundance of weaponry in Heston’s apartment) and a crucifixion.

Most disturbing, however is the amount of time that Charlton Heston spends shirtless, for no good reason.

9 Blindness, 2008

Mark Ruffalo is a doctor who treats a man that has gone suddenly blind. The following day, Ruffalo, too, goes blind, and he realises that the blindness must have been caused by some kind of contagion.

The virus spreads, causing a whole city to become sightless overnight.

Except for Ruffalo’s wife, played by Julianne Moore, who retains her sight. In order to be able to stay with her husband, however, she pretends to be blind too.

Blindness is a film about what happens when we become completely dependent upon the kindness of strangers, and about how thin the veneer of decency can be when it’s every man for himself.

8 Outbreak, 1995

Outbreak, released in 1995, concerned an outbreak of an Ebola-like virus in Zaire, and it was an immediate success. Partly this was due to the performance of its all-star cast, and partly because, at the time of its release, Ebola was breaking out in, of all places, Zaire.

The virus is spread through a series of unfortunate, not to say unlikely, events, which include a military cover-up, a smuggled monkey, and its release into the wild, and a broken vial of blood which releases the virus as effectively as Pandora and her box.

Starring Dustin Hoffman, Rene Russo and Morgan Freeman, with star turns by Kevin Spacey, Donald Sutherland and Cuba Gooding Jr, the film’s premise was a little bit ridiculous but the levels of denial among those who should know better is spot on.

7 I Am Legend

How do you cure cancer? Easy. Give it the measles.

Barmy? Possibly. For some reason, not adequately explored, someone must have skipped the usual drug trial protocols, because, next thing you know, the measles has wiped out most of the world’s population. Oops.

Not to worry. Will Smith, is a former soldier turned virologist. Which means that when the measles turns his neighbours into mutant-zombie-vampires, he is trained to both fight them and cure them, all while trying to make contact with other virus-free survivors.

Living alone, with only his dog and some shop mannequins for company, Smith starts to go a little bit mad. He is plagued by the question of whether he is the only person to survive the virus. Could there be other people out there too? I am Legend was well received both critically and popularly, with everyone praising the performance of Will Smith. And his dog.

The mannequins were a bit wooden.

6 The Andromeda Strain

The Andromeda Strain was based on a novel by Michael Crichton, who was a doctor before he was a writer, so presumably knew a thing or two about viruses. When a satellite returns to earth, it brings with it a micro-organism that causes blood to clot in the veins. Those people who don’t die instantly, are driven to kill themselves.

Obviously, NASA has a protocol for dealing with alien micro-organisms. This protocol, codenamed Wildfire, requires sending a crack team of scientists to investigate, while the military prefer their own solution – let’s nuke it. Isn’t that always their solution?

The movie focusses on the disconnect between science and the military, and the dangers of devising rigid protocols to deal with unknown situations.

5 Contagion, 2011

This one is a little bit scary. Directed by Steven Soderbergh, Contagion is a movie about how viruses spread. It is about how difficult they are to contain, and how devastating the consequences can be when they’re not contained.

The film has been praised by scientists for its accurate portrayal of the difficulties of dealing with pandemics. Its all-star cast may help distract you from the impending breakdown of society. The film has everything, from politicians trying to downplay the seriousness of the epidemic, to charlatans trying to make a quick buck selling homeopathic cures, and heroic scientists who work round the clock to try to develop a vaccine.

Soderbergh said that he was trying to make an ‘ultra-realistic’ film about pandemics, and their affect on social order. Job Done.

4 28 Days Later, 2003

When Cillian Murphy awakes from a coma after 4 weeks, the world is a different place. He walks the streets of a deserted London, wondering what on earth happened has happened, and looking for signs of life.

It turns out that an animal rights group has accidentally released a chimpanzee with a highly contagious virus which causes extreme rage and loss of control. During the 28 days he has been asleep, society has collapsed, and the world has all but ended.

28 Days Later is not a film about viruses, as such, but about what happens to society when the normal rules of life are suspended.
It’s not pretty.

3 Train to Busan, 2016

If you want a virus outbreak film that doesn’t take itself too seriously, you could go for Train to Busan. A South Korean action/horror film, it broke records in Korea for audience size.
Imagine you are on a busy train. A woman boards at the last minute, looking pretty ill. The train has barely pulled out of the station before the woman mutates into a zombie-figure, who then attacks the guard, who then also mutates.

Not only that, but, whilst trying to quarantine the infected passengers in one railway car, your train passes burning buildings, and other mutant-zombies, so there’s no point trying to get off. What do you do next?

Train to Busan has been described as ‘the best zombie film ever’, and did wonders for the popularity of South Korean cinema, although probably not quite so much for its train companies.

2 12 Monkeys

What do you do if a deadly virus has wiped out most of humanity? Obviously, you build a time-machine and send Bruce Willis back from a dystopian future to sort it out. 12 Monkeys is directed by Terry Gilliam, so you know it’s also going to be a little bit strange.

Brad Pitt is certainly strange. As are the other inmates of the lunatic asylum to which Bruce is very quickly confined. Pitt’s performance won him a well-deserved Oscar nomination for his performance as an anarchist eco-terrorist with daddy issues and a side serving of psychosis.

In truth the movie isn’t really about a virus. It’s Bruce Willis saving the world. Again.

And that is always fun to watch. But it is Terry Gilliam’s direction, with his trademark black humour and twisted endings and Brad Pitt’s crazy man performance that takes this film from fun to fantastic.

1 Death in Venice, 1971

Death In Venice stands apart from the others on this list as being not just entertainment, but art. Scene after scene we are met with some of the most beautifully filmed images of one of the world’s most beautiful places: Venice. The film follows Gustav von Aschenbach who is taking time to recuperate from a nervous breakdown in Venice, which—ironically—is beginning to feel the effects of a cholera epidemic.

In between lusting after an adolescent polish boy staying at the same hotel and dealing with a mid-life crisis, Aschenbach has flashbacks to the death of his daughter and his career as a composer. The unravelling of the of the protagonist’s life through the film leads us to one of the most poignant and macabre endings ever. Director Luchino Visconti (featured on Top 10 Films About Economic Disaster You Really Need To Watch for The Damned) proved himself a true visionary in the production of this film.

The soundtrack by Gustav Mahler is eerie, beautiful, serene, and breathtaking.

Watch this film before any other on this list.

Determining the origin of a deadly disease is an important part of understanding and treating the disease properly. While the origins of many diseases remain matters for debate, the following deadly outbreaks have compelling evidence of an animal origin. These eventually led to a spillover event: when a disease jumps from one species to another. Unfortunately, in these cases, that second species was us.

10AIDS
Cameroonian Chimpanzees

The history of AIDS is extensive, and there have been many efforts to trace its origin, perhaps most famously with the first “patient zero,” Gaetan Dugas. The initial scapegoat, Dugas was a Canadian flight attendant who came to be known as Patient Zero through a misunderstanding, as the zero was not a zero, but rather the letter “O,” for “out of California.” While Dugas took the blame for HIV and AIDS in the 1980s, the virus—in humans, at least—predates Dugas by several decades.

The truth is that AIDS came to humans through a spillover event involving a chimpanzee in southern Cameroon way back in the early 1900s. The theory goes that it was likely a hunter who ventured into the jungle, encountered and killed a chimpanzee carrying the virus, and then went on to butcher the animal. In the course of processing the animal, the hunter either cut himself or had an open wound through which the disease was transmitted. As a zoonosis (animal disease that can be passed to humans), SIV becomes HIV once it passes from its initial host to the human host.

9Ebola
African Fruit Bats

The crab-eating macaque was once thought to have been responsible for the most recent outbreak of Ebola in Africa, but it turns out that these primates are not wholly responsible and are instead “accidental hosts.” The origin has now been tied to African fruit bats, and researchers believe that they now not only know the initial human host, but also the specific location where he was first infected.

It was initially unknown how Emile Ouamouno, the two-year-old first infected in the most recent outbreak, first contracted Ebola, but it now appears that the toddler came into contact with the infected bats while playing in a large, hollow tree in the Meliandou village. The tree—which has since been burned to a stump—was inhabited by thousands of the bats, and Ouamouno was very likely infected by coming into contact with either the bats or the significant amount of fecal matter left behind in the hollow of the tree.

8African Sleeping Sickness
Tsetse Flies

The have been a number of widespread outbreaks of Human African Trypanosomiasis—commonly known as African sleeping sickness—and the incidence of the disease has steadily climbed since environmental concerns led to banning the use of DDT as an insecticide in the 1970s. The tsetse fly is the culprit, as it carries the parasite responsible for the fever, rash, extreme fatigue, and swelling—among other things—that African sleeping sickness causes. The WHO estimates that the disease infects 30,000 people on an annual basis, and the aforementioned symptoms eventually lead to coma and death.

African sleeping sickness is believed to have played an important evolutionary role, and attempts at eradication are very unlikely to be successful. Control of the disease, however, is a possibility, and there have been a number of recent developments that seem promising in preventing infection, including a “repellent collar” technology that is designed to combat the tsetse fly and the infection it causes. Given the widespread nature of the tsetse fly (they are present in over 37 countries), this is an extremely important development that could lead to the prevention of further outbreaks.

7SARS
Chinese Horseshoe Bats

It was initially thought that civet cats were the reservoir hosts of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS), but a 2013 study revealed that the true hosts were Chinese horseshoe bats. While there were also some theories that an intermediate host was needed (such as the animals found in the Chinese markets), the study found that the bats can transfer SARS directly to humans without an intermediate host.

The realization that civet cats were not responsible came after researchers noted that the cats were not infected with SARS until they had been in contact with the Chinese wet markets, and that there must be another host responsible for the transmission. The pandemic these bats caused in the early part of this century (2002 and 2003) has been referred to as “one of the most significant public health events in recent history,” and it caused a great deal of widespread international concern.

6Hendra
Australian Flying Foxes

The first reported outbreak of Hendra occurred in 1994 in Australia, and while the outbreak was deadly to humans, it had a greater impact on the horse population. Vic Rail, a successful and well-known Australian horse trainer, along with 14 of his horses, fell ill with Hendra in 1994 and died within a matter of days. Since the initial outbreak of Hendra, only seven cases have been reported among humans (four of which were fatal), but it remains quite a problematic zoonosis for the horse population.

It has been determined that Australia’s flying fox population is the reason for the spread of Hendra. The flying fox, which belongs to Megachiroptera, a suborder of megabats, is considered the largest bat in the world and has a wingspan that can be as large as 1.5 meters (5 ft). No direct link between the flying foxes and humans exists, as all of the human cases of Hendra have occurred due to contact with an infected horse, which makes it fairly likely that a horse is necessary to serve as the amplifier for Hendra infection.

5Crimean-Congo Hemorrhagic Fever
Ixodid Ticks

Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever (CCHF) causes symptoms similar to that of Ebola and Marburg, and it carries a fatality rate of up to 40 percent. The first reported outbreak occurred in 1944, affecting both soldiers and farmers on the Crimean Peninsula. While infection can occur as a result of contact with infected livestock, CCHF is a tick-borne illness with no existing vaccinations available.

While there have been a number of outbreaks of CCHF, the most recent occurred in Uganda in 2013, when a farmer from the village of Baroma in the Atece Parish had to be hospitalized for symptoms consistent with CCHF. He was followed by several others who died with similar symptoms. It was unclear whether the farmers acquired CCHF through contact with an ixodid tick or through infected livestock. While there is currently no vaccine available for CCHF, there is hope that a vaccine in the pre-clinical stage will offer sufferers some respite while offering others a method of prevention.

4Machupo Virus
Bolivian Field Mice

The Machupo virus, or Bolivian hemorrhagic fever, is considered a sister virus to Ebola, with the first reported cases striking Bolivia in 1959. Subsequent outbreaks occurred in northern Bolivia in 1971 and 1994, and the Machupo virus carries a mortality rate of up to 30 percent. Incidentally, the widespread use of DDT in Bolivia (used to deal with the malaria problem) may have been an indirect cause for some of the Machupo outbreaks, as it played a role in killing the feline population, therefore allowing the mouse population to flourish. It is the mice, of course, that serve as the reservoir for the virus and then transfer it to humans.

The Machupo virus is carried by the mice and virus particles can be found in the urine, feces, and saliva of the field mice found in Bolivia. It has been theorized that the virus spreads most efficiently when dried mouse urine is swept into the air and inhaled by those nearby.

3Marburg
African Fruit Bats

Marburg features symptoms that are remarkably similar to those experienced by sufferers of Ebola, including a severe and potentially fatal hemorrhagic fever. While there are those who point to monkeys as the cause, it is actually fruit bats that are believed to be the natural host of the deadly disease. Humans are likely infected when handling fruit bats in food preparation, as bats are considered something of a delicacy in many of the areas commonly affected by Marburg.

Studies are still ongoing to determine if other animals serve as reservoir hosts, but it is certainly not monkeys, who are sometimes thought to transfer the disease. Monkeys, and all primates for that matter, must contend with a high mortality rate if infected with Marburg. Given the widespread populations of African fruit bats, the risk of a significant Marburg outbreak is quite high.

2Lassa Fever
Multimammate Rat

Lassa fever, like many of the other deadly viruses on this list, is endemic to West Africa and was first discovered in 1969 after two missionary nurses died after coming into contact with the virus in Nigeria. Similar to Machupo, the virus is carried by rodents, but this time by the multimammate rat. These rodents transfer the virus to humans in much the same way as the Bolivian field mouse, most often through dried urine that becomes aerosolized when swept. This is particularly problematic given the breeding frequency of these rats and their tendency to build nests in homes in which common food items are stored.

Lassa fever is so common in West Africa that its outbreaks occur on an annual basis, infecting up to 500,000 people and killing as many as 20,000 yearly. The most recent outbreak in Nigeria occurred just weeks after the country had announced that it had contained Ebola, overwhelming medical professionals already stretched thin by the ravages of the virus.

1MERS
Egyptian Tomb Bat

Middle Eastern respiratory syndrome, or MERS, is a relatively recent illness that has thus far been mostly localized to countries in and around the Arabian Peninsula. While there has yet to be a widespread outbreak of MERS, there are fears that the deadly disease could spread quickly and in a similar fashion to the SARS outbreak. Like SARS, it’s been found that the animal spillover ultimately occurred via bats—the Egyptian tomb bat, to be precise.

While it has been determined that the tomb bat is responsible for the origin of MERS, researchers do not believe that the virus is spread via direct contact with the bats, but rather through an intermediate host. The researchers have tested a number of different animals, and there is some belief that any number of animals—including camels, sheep, goats, and cats—could serve as the intermediate host through which humans acquire MERS.

J. Francis Wolfe is a freelance writer whose work can be seen daily at Dodgers Today. When he’s not writing, he is most likely waiting for “just one more wave,” or quietly reading under a shady tree.

Under the surface, the Cold War wasn’t all that cold. All the key players backed campaigns of espionage and even murder. In this environment, assassins flourished like never before. As deadly killers ranged across the world, everyone was a suspect and no one was safe.

10Spray-Gun Man

In 1950, a 19-year-old Ukrainian student named Bohdan Stashynsky was arrested for riding a train without a ticket. The local authorities handed him over to the KGB, who threatened to arrest his family unless he agreed to work for them. After he spent several years infiltrating the anti-Communist underground, the agency felt that he could be trusted. That was when they gave him the gun.

The gun was a small aluminum cylinder that sprayed a jet of liquid cyanide. If this hit someone in the face or chest, the vapors would cause their arteries to suddenly contract, cutting the blood supply to the brain and killing them rapidly (a CIA report concluded that it might “conceivably . . . allow the victim time to scream”). The arteries would return to normal after five minutes, leaving to trace of the poison. Stashynsky tested it on a dog in the woods outside Karlshorst.

In 1957, Stashynsky loomed out of a stairwell in Munich and killed Ukrainian anti-Communist Lev Rebet with a jet of poison. Two years later, he killed Ukrainian nationalist leader Stepan Bandera the same way. He swallowed antidote pills before and after each attack. Both deaths were ruled heart attacks.

They might have stayed that way if Stashynsky hadn’t fallen in love with an East German woman. The KGB disapproved of the relationship and repeatedly tried to break the couple up. When their young son suddenly died, the agency relented and allowed Stashynsky to travel to the funeral in Germany. The couple immediately defected to the West, where Stashynsky confessed to the murders.

9William Bechtel

In a diary found by the Swiss police, William Bechtel wrote, “I can break a man’s neck without his having time to shout. I know how to kill. But I look harmless.” These qualities, picked up in the French Foreign Legion, made him the perfect assassin for the “Red Hand,” a unit of the SDECE spy agency tasked with eliminating anti-French independence leaders in Africa.

One such leader was Cameroonian nationalist Felix Roland-Moumie. In 1960, Bechtel introduced himself to Moumie as a journalist and invited him to dinner in Geneva. An accomplice distracted Moumie with a phone call while Bechtel slipped deadly Thallium into his aperitif. The dose was carefully measured to kill him after he had boarded his flight to Guinea in the early hours of the morning. It was believed that the poison would not be detected by the authorities there.

The plan went wrong when Moumie pushed aside the aperitif and sipped a glass of wine instead. Undeterred, Bechtel poisoned the wine as well, but then Moumie suddenly picked up the aperitif and drained it, giving him a double dose of poison. He died almost immediately and Swiss investigators linked the killing to Bechtel. Protected by the French government, he was never convicted of the murder before his death in 1980. The head of the SDECE later gave a detailed description of the murder.

8Jean-Pierre Cherid

Jean-Pierre Cherid was radicalized as a member of the OAS (“Organization Armee secrete”), a right-wing paramilitary group that opposed Algerian independence and repeatedly tried to assassinate French President Charles de Gaulle. In response, de Gaulle launched his own terrifying underground gang of killers: the SAC (“Service d’Action Civique”).

After the OAS collapsed, Cherid fled to Spain, where he soon found employment as an assassin for the Spanish government. He was particularly active in the war against the Basque separatist group ETA. Among other assassinations, he planted the car bomb that killed ETA leader Jose Benaran Ordenana and planned the murder of Jose Martin Sagardia in southern France. He also led the notorious machine gun attack on the Hendayais bar, which killed two French citizens.

Cherid died in 1984, when he made a mistake while wiring a bomb in Biarritz, France. His mangled remains were recovered from the roof of a neighboring house.

7Michael Townley

In 1973, the Chilean president Salvador Allende died in a US-backed coup. The new junta launched a reign of terror, with the notorious “Caravan of Death” racing across the country murdering political prisoners. Meanwhile, Chile’s secret service (DINA) began recruiting killers to deal with the regime’s overseas enemies. One of their most successful hires was a young American named Michael Townley, who had cut his teeth building bombs for CIA-backed Cuban groups in Miami.

In 1974, Townley planted the car bomb that killed General Carlos Prats, an opponent of the coup who was living in Argentina. The next year, he orchestrated the shooting of exiled politician Bernardo Leighton and his wife in Rome.

In 1976, he carried out his most notorious assassination, when he detonated a bomb in Washington DC, killing former Chilean ambassador Orlando Letelier and an American associate. The murder caused a scandal, especially since Townley and DINA had strong links to the CIA and it was rumored that the agency may have been aware of the plot.

Townley was extradited from Chile to the United States in 1978. In return for his testimony against various Cuban accomplices, he received a light 10-year sentence. He is currently believed to be living quietly as a free man under the Witness Protection Program.

6Josip Perkovic

In 1977, a Serbian exile named Dragisa Kasikovic was found dead in his Chicago office. He had been stabbed over 60 times. His girlfriend’s nine-year-old daughter Ivanka was found nearby, similarly butchered. Dragisa and Ivanka were among dozens of Yugoslavian emigres murdered during the Cold War, from America to Australia to France. The victims were all opponents of the Yugoslav government established by Josip Broz Tito.

Tito famously opposed Soviet influence, and it has been alleged that Western governments were reluctant to investigate the Yugoslav assassination program for fear of damaging their relations. Investigators were allegedly warned against accusing the Yugoslav government and the murders never received the publicity given to assassinations by other Communist states—even though the Yugoslavs killed far more people in the west than the KGB did.

Even after the Cold War ended, there was considerable resistance to going after the perpetrators. When Croatia joined the European Union, it passed a law effectively blocking the extradition of Josip Perkovic, who ran the unit that carried out many of the murders. Perkovic was finally arrested in 2014 and is currently serving a life sentence in Germany for the 1983 murder of exile Stjepan Durekovic.

5Vinko Sindicic

In 1988, football fans flooded into Glasgow for a World Cup qualifier between Scotland and Yugoslavia. One of the “fans” left Glasgow and traveled north to a wooded area, where he retrieved a hidden gun. Carrying on to Kirkcaldy, he shot Croatian dissident Nikola Stedul in the mouth and chest.

Astonishingly, Stedul survived, thanks largely to his dog Pasha, who charged the gunman and alerted the neighbors by barking, forcing him to flee before finishing the job. The assassin was subsequently arrested at Heathrow Airport and identified as Vinko Sindicic, perhaps the deadliest agent of the Yugoslav murder program.

Sindicic is believed to have carried out over a dozen murders around the world. Probably the most notorious is the killing of the journalist Bruno Busic, who was shot in the doorway of his Paris apartment in 1978. An attempt to try Sindicic for the killing collapsed after a disastrous trial and he is currently a free man, having completed 10 years for attempted murder in a British prison.

4Craig Williamson

Craig Williamson killed from a distance, but that didn’t make him any less deadly. As South Africa’s “superspy,” he had infiltrated the anti-Apartheid movement during the 1970s, before rising suspicion led to his recall in 1980. Promoted to the rank of major in South African military intelligence, he ordered the bomb maker Jerry Raven to design deadly bombs small enough to be slipped into an envelope. In 1982, he used one of these letter bombs to kill exiled writer and activist Ruth First in Mozambique.

In 1884, he sent another letter bomb to the ANC members Marius and Jeanette Schoon in Angola. The bomb killed Jeanette and the couple’s six-year-old daughter. Williamson had known the couple well during his double agent days and allegedly sent the bomb as revenge for their role in blowing his cover, although he denies this was his motive.

In 2000, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission granted Williamson amnesty for all three murders, as well as the 1982 bombing of the ANC office in London. He remains a free man.

3Mehmet Ali Agca

As a young man, Mehmet Ali Agca joined a violent Turkish neo-fascist group called the Grey Wolves, who sent him to Syria to be trained as an assassin. He carried out his first killing in 1979, when he shot the noted newspaper editor Abdi Ipekci.

He later escaped from prison and spent several years on the run. During this time he is believed to have carried out at least one more assassination, gunning down a Turkish nationalist in Germany. Then, in 1981, he pushed through a crowd in Rome and shot the Pope.

John Paul II was hit four times but survived and later publicly forgave Agca. The shooting remains shrouded in mystery. Agca himself made several bizarre and conflicting statements, including a claim to be the Messiah. Experts are split on whether these claims were due to mental illness or a deliberate tactic to throw off investigators.

There is a plausible theory that he was hired by the Bulgarian Secret Service on behalf of the KGB, who were disturbed by the Pope’s popularity in his native Poland. Equally plausible is the theory that he was a crazy person who decided to kill the Pope. Agca was released from prison in 2010 and currently lives in Turkey.

2Mike Harari

In 1972, the Palestinian terrorist group Black September killed 11 Israeli Olympic athletes in Munich. In response, the Israeli government launched Operation Wrath Of God, which aimed to assassinate the entire leadership of Black September. The leader of the operation was Mike Harari, a Mossad agent and founder of the Kidon assassination unit.

Harari was a legend in Mossad—during the famous raid on Entebbe airport, he personally scouted the location and even got inside the air traffic control tower disguised as an Italian businessman. Under his leadership, the hit squad killed at least seven suspected Black September members across Europe. One man answered his telephone, confirmed his identity, and was immediately killed by a bomb hidden in the receiver.

But Harari’s reputation took a hit when he personally led a mission to Norway which ended up killing an innocent Moroccan waiter who had somehow been mistaken for Black September leader Ali Hassan Salameh. To make matters worse, six members of the squad were arrested by Norwegian authorities. Harari himself escaped, but the damage to Mossad’s reputation was tremendous.

Harari’s last known operation came six years later, when he finally managed to assassinate Salameh, somewhat restoring his image after the Norway fiasco. He died in 2014, having spent much of his retirement denying an alleged stint working for Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega.

1The Giant, The Killer, And The Old Man

In the early 1980s, the Belgian region of Brabant was terrorized by a mysterious group that killed at least 28 people. The attacks were superficially robberies, but the scale of the violence and the tiny amounts taken made it clear that money wasn’t the real motive.

In one case, the group burst into a supermarket and shot seven people dead, including young children. They made off with a small bag of cash, which was later found unopened in a canal. On another occasion, the group triggered the alarm in a food shop and then waited for the police to arrive. The gendarmes walked right into an ambush.

Three regular members of the gang were tentatively identified. The Giant was a tall man who appeared to be the leader, the Killer was considered the most violent of the group, and the Old Man usually acted as the getaway driver.

It was later revealed that members of the Belgian neo-fascist group Westland New Post had performed surveillance on some of the locations attacked by the killers, apparently on the instruction of their leader Paul Latinus. That has led to speculation that the extreme right-wing carried out the attacks to discredit leftists or undermine the government. It has also been suggested that the group was connected to elements of the Belgian state or the CIA-backed Gladio network. The murders remain unsolved.

They say it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there and that’s just if you’re a dog. They’re cute and can get away with simple things like that. Other creatures are not so lucky so when it comes to self-defense they need to up their game. While most animals in the world rely on things like teeth and claws, camouflage, speed, or subterfuge for defense, a few take things to the next level. Some have even resorted to biological methods of modern warfare with projectile and explosive weaponry.

10. Bombardier Beetles Shoot Boiling Chemical Bombs

You can’t talk about creatures that employ artillery as a defense mechanism without mentioning the bombardier beetle. These tiny bugs pack a full-on chemical weapon punch for anything foolish enough to eat them that is reminiscent of the premise behind the explosives used in Die Hard with a Vengeance, which gives the beetle tons of extra street cred.

Inside the beetle’s abdomen are two sacks. One contains hydrogen peroxide. The other is hydroquinone. You’re probably familiar with hydrogen peroxide as most of us have it in a medicine cabinet or first aid kit. Hydroquinone is also used cosmetically as a skin-lightening agent that reduces melanin. They’re typically pretty safe, too.

When the beetle is threatened, it shoots these chemicals out of its backside mixed with a third compound that acts as a catalyst and causes an instant chemical reaction. The two normally benign chemicals mix and form boiling water and benzoquinone. The spray and gas mixture hits the beetle’s target at 212 degrees Fahrenheit or 100 degrees Celsius, the temperature of boiling water.

Small creatures like other insects will be killed immediately. Larger creatures can be blinded and even a human will be burned and scarred. This is because of the temperature but also the caustic nature of the chemicals which can affect the respiratory system, as well. 

The beetles have enough juice to fire off about 20 bursts before they run out and they’re also known to have impeccable aim. The orifice through which they fire the mixture has a full 270 degrees of movement to aid in aiming at predators, too, meaning there aren’t a lot of safe ways to come at a bombardier beetle.

9. Velvet Worms Shoot Slime From Biological Gun Turrets

In the animal kingdom, being blind doesn’t mean you can’t shoot your shot when it counts. Velvet worms live in forests and jungles around the world and there are over 200 species of them. They have developed a unique defensive ability which has been described as a “silly string of death,” so you know it has to be good.

The worms feel changes in air currents to know when prey is nearby and then, when they get close enough, two nozzles extend from their head to fire foot-long ropes of goo. The substance coats its target and dries quickly, rooting the victim in place. It can also be used defensively to escape a predator, either holding a small predator in place or, at the very least, slowing one down as it deals with a face full of fast-drying sludge. 

Once trapped, the worm can approach its prey and use a knife-like protrusion in its mouth to slice a hole in it. They then fill the trapped snack with digestive saliva which will liquify it and allow the worm to slurp it up instead of doing anything messy like chewing. 

8. Hagfish Expel Slime That Expands 10,000 Times

The velvet worm may think he’s hot stuff with his little slime ropes but the hagfish is the unparalleled slime goat of the animal kingdom. These off-putting creatures have no jaws, no spines, live on the ocean floor, and have changed little in 500 million years. But none of that is why they’re famous.

When threatened, hagfish produce slime. It’s a defense mechanism meant to fend off a predator to prevent the fish from being eaten. So far so good. But the hagfish slime is unlike anything you can imagine. Their bodies are covered in glands that expel mucus and miles and miles of thread-like compounds to ward off predators. As soon as this stuff hits the seawater it expands at a staggering rate. The slime will grow 10,000 times in an instant, turning the water into Jell-O in the blink of an eye.

If a predator is trying to eat a hagfish, it will have to immediately back off or deal with suffocation as its mouth and gills are overwhelmed with sludge it can’t breathe and can’t escape. Not only is the substance incredibly soft it’s stretchy and remarkably strong, so you can just break through it to get free. 

7. Sea Cucumbers Shoot Internal Organs From Their Anus

Sea cucumbers aren’t winning any beauty contests soon but they do attract a lot of attention for their unusual self-defense strategy. They use their butts as a cannon and fire out their insides.

There are variations in how this works depending on the kind of sea cucumber. Some of them shoot out internal organs, kind of like a fighter jet releasing flares to attract enemy missiles, that will then grow back later. Others fire off strands of a sticky substance that can snare their potential predators while the cucumber escapes.

In the latter case, the threads released are called a Cuvierian organ. These tubes are attached to the organs the cucumber uses to breathe, which they do through their butts. If a predator comes along and tries to eat the cucumber, the organs are ejected and expand as they fill with seawater.

Because they’re sticky like a spider web, they can snare the attacker and sometimes even kill it if they can’t break free.

6. Texas Horned Lizards Shoot Blood Out of Their Eyes

Sometimes looking hardcore and dangerous is not enough to convince a predator to leave you alone. The Texas horned lizard, for instance, looks like a dangerous little foe for any predator. His back is covered with those aforementioned horns making it look like a modern-day dragon. It’s also really well camouflaged when hiding in sandy, rocky areas in and around its habitat. But it still has a hidden defense in case horns and hiding don’t work. 

Because horned lizards are pretty small, about the size of a bullfrog, they are vulnerable to larger predators even with their spikes. To fend off these creatures, the lizard will shoot a jet of its blood out of its eyes, like some kind of horror movie come to life. 

When threatened, blood flow to the lizard’s head is restricted. This causes the ocular sinus to fill as the pressure builds. The lizard can then contract the muscles around its eyes and cause the sinus to burst outward, shooting a jet of blood as far as five feet. They can do it multiple times as well. 

Few animals like being squirted, just try squirting your cat with a water bottle sometime, so the tactic can be fairly effective. Also, the blood apparently tastes bad, so it helps convince predators to move on. 

5. Northern Fulmar Gulls Use Vomit As a Defense

When it comes to forcibly firing something at a predator or prey, biology only gives us so many options. Whatever is being shot has to come out of some sort of orifice and most life forms only have so many to choose from. With northern fulmar gulls it’s the mouth. And the ammunition they fire comes from the most obvious place you can think of – the stomach. These gulls have weaponized vomit.

The stomachs of the fulmar gulls contain an oil that is described as being both foul and sticky, so we’re off to a good start. If a predator bird comes to their nests, the birds can vomit on them to force them away. But their use of this weapon is more insidious than just being disgusting. 

When the gulls vomit on other birds, it strips away the coating that sea birds need on their feathers to stay afloat. It can also mat the feathers in such a way that the bird can no longer fly, which is essentially a death sentence for any bird. 

4. Archerfish Shoot Prey With Water Jets

We’ve already covered a couple of underwater creatures that have fired off effective defenses while being submerged, but the archerfish is a little different. While it lives in the water like any other fish, its weapon is meant for prey on the land and in the air. 

Described as an “anti-aircraft gun,” the archerfish can fire a jet of water into the air to knock prey from the sky or from off of plants hanging over the water. Once the prey falls into the water, the fish can swoop in and swallow it whole.

The fish are just a few inches long so their prey isn’t particularly big – usually just tasty-looking flies or crickets. But the archerfish can spy them from the depths, rise to the surface, and fire off a jet to a distance of several feet with amazing accuracy so much so that they can tag insects in flight. 

Even if the aim is a little off, the archerfish is working with an automatic weapon. On a single mouthful of water, it can fire up to seven shots in quick succession to hit its target. Studies have shown that the fish likely won’t need this, though, since they rarely miss.

3. Spitting Spiders Spit Silk at Prey

Arachnophobia is a common fear among humans and you have to assume smaller insects are terrified of spiders as well. The webs and the venom make them formidable predators. The only upside is that many of them are passive and even the aggressive ones need to chase prey. Except for spitting spiders. 

As the name suggests, spitting spiders can fire off a spit attack at prey. The spit attacks travel at 30 meters per second which is over 67 miles per hour. It snares the prey with silk, trapping it in place so the spider can quickly inject it with venom. 

2. There’s An Exploding Species of Termite

In the jungles of French Guiana, there’s a species of termite that spends its entire life waiting to die. Philosophically, you could make that argument about any living thing. But these guys take it to an explosive new level.

As these termites age, their body secretes a blue liquid produced by a pair of specialized glands. The liquid crystalizes in an abdominal pouch and it just stays there. More and more of it builds up as the termite ages such that the oldest termites will have an unhealthy dose of this stuff that they may never use. But then again they might.

If the colony is attacked, the oldest termites become the front line of defense. Because they’re older, these termites are less useful to the colony as foragers and workers. Their mandibles dull over time, making them slower and less useful. But their blue crystals give them value still.

When threatened, the termite can force their pouch full of crystals to explode. It mixes with their saliva to create a toxic solution that can paralyze and kill attacking termites. The older the termite, the more potent the reaction and though the termite also dies, it does so to protect the younger members of the colony. 

1. Pygmy Sperm Whales Shoot Poop Clouds

Whales rarely have a lot to worry about in terms of predators, except for humans. In the wild, few animals challenge a whale simply because of its size. But that only counts for large whales and not all of them get to monumental size. Take pygmy sperm whales, for instance. At eight to 14 feet they’re not outside the range of what a shark or orca whale might attack. 

To escape predators, pygmy sperm whales have evolved a unique sort of smoke bomb defense. Except instead of smoke it’s poop. Inside their intestines is a sack filled with a dark, reddish-brown liquid. In a pinch they can shoot out three gallons of the sludge which produces an ink cloud like a squid, giving the whale time to flee.

The human body is truly marvelous. It can cope with ridiculous demands, heal itself, feed itself, and most importantly, protect itself from harm. However, our understanding of the true mysteries of human anatomy and how the body works is far from perfect. Many times, we’ve been confronted with new diseases that we simply didn’t even know existed. Some of these ailments may have been the basis of folklore and cultural beliefs. Others are, well, just plain weird for those not initiated in the ways of medicine. Here are 10 truly weird symptoms that may signal an underlying deadly disease.

10 Forgetting To Breathe

Yes, you read that right. People sometimes forget to breathe. When pressure begins to build on the brain for whatever reason—be it due to a large bloody stroke, an expanding tumor, or the accumulation of water within the brain matter (hydrocephalus)—the brain is eventually pressed against the skull. This often affects the breathing centers, located in the brain stem.

So yes, the age-old (and morbid) joke of someone forgetting to breathe actually comes true. It’s far from being a laughing matter in real life, however, as it often signifies a buildup of intracranial pressure that may eventually end in death.

9 ‘Dancing’

You know that feeling when you can’t sit still and the beat of the music just takes over your body? We’re not talking about that. In the medical field, music and dance inclinations aside, there exist several severely degenerative diseases that result in the patient having uncontrolled, jerky movements, otherwise noted by nonmedical individuals as a form of dancing.

Such movement are referred to as hemiballismus and result from certain portions of the brain losing their inhibitory control of movement. Though quite interesting at first glance, the symptom is quite debilitating and oftentimes requires an intensive amount of medications to keep the patient from moving or exhibiting jerking movements.

8 Hypersexuality

It’s joked that men are from Mars and women are from Venus, but it turns out that the human sex drive is written into deeper parts of the human brain. Hypersexuality and inappropriate sexual behavior (as well as desires to put things in one’s mouth and the loss of normal fear responses) are all part of a group of symptoms that describe Kluver-Bucy syndrome, a rare disease often seen in people who have sustained large amounts of damage to the portions of their brain responsible for keeping these emotions in check.

Unfortunately, no amount of psychotherapy or medication can truly correct this disease. Often, patients are left highly highly irritable and, well, aroused by pretty much anyone . . . and anything.

7 Complete Paralysis While Completely Awake

The thought of being completely paralyzed while totally aware is often the stuff of nightmares and cheesy indie movie plotlines. But however strange and horrifying as it may be, this can sometimes become a frightening reality for some patients, an affliction known as locked-in syndrome (LIS). Many patients who’ve sustained massive (just short of fatal) brain damage go into a state where they’re unable to move, communicate, or feel—but are often conscious and aware of all that is happening around them.

Chances of recovery are often slim, with most patients remaining in this state until they die. Several famous cases of LIS include Stephen Hawking, who is afflicted with ALS, Rom Houben, a highly publicized car crash survivor who was trapped in the state for over 23 years, and Jean Dominique Bauby, a French Philanthropist who later founded an organization dedicated to helping those with LIS.

6 Testicles Larger Than Your Body

Imagine having large testicles. Now imagine that they’re larger than your torso. Now imagine being unable to move due to the sheer bulk and size of your enlarged testicles. Such a condition called elephantiasis, which can also refer to enlargement of the feet or legs in addition to the genitals.

It’s usually the result of parasitic infection, particularly by filarial worms, which are small roundworms often found in the soil in African countries. These worms burrow into people’s legs and block off the conduits draining them, thus leading to an accumulation of water under the skin . . . including the scrotum.

Other times, testicular swelling may be due to other conditions that may cause pooling of fluid near the testicles, a symptom otherwise known as hydrocoele (or hematocoele if that fluid is blood). Thankfully, most of the time, this condition is highly curable when caught early. So yes, it would be advisable to check yourselves, gentlemen—every single chance you get.

5 ‘Burning Up’

Have you ever been so mad that you felt like you could erupt into a fiery inferno of hatred and spite? Medically speaking, the closest you can possibly get is malignant hyperthermia. This is a rare condition that occurs after undergoing surgery, specifically after undergoing general anesthesia. Body temperatures can get close to 41 degrees Celsius (105 °F), causing tremendous damage to tissues not used to such an elevated ambient temperature.

Malignant hyperthermia is often caused by an inherited defect in an individual’s normal temperature response. Unfortunately, most people who suffer from this are often unaware that they have the mutation until they’re sent to intensive care after surgery, thus giving a new meaning to being “hot” in bed.

4 Being Hurt By Sunlight

No, we’re not talking about Twilight or Edward Cullen. Instead, we’re looking at the medical condition that spurred the whole legend of vampires and associated ways to dispose of them, namely light and garlic. This condition is called porphyria, a general term used to describe the buildup of porphyrins in the body due to an inability to produce heme from the porphyrins. Some types are more severe than others.

So how exactly do people with porphyria behave? First, they are deathly afraid of light, since light triggers a reaction in their skin that causes severe pain. Secondly, they exhibit a ghostly pale complexion, mostly due to their aversion to sunlight. They’re also afraid of garlic because the odor aggravates most of their symptoms. On top of this, their urine takes on a purplish hue, almost as if it was blood. Does that all sound familiar? Thankfully, porphyria is exceptionally rare these days. Those afflicted with it are often confined to the pages of adolescent female fantasy literature.

3 Fear Of Water

We’ve all seen cats and dogs exhibit aversions to water. But can it ever happen to humans? Apart from fear of drowning (or the neglect of personal hygiene), the fear of water, specifically of swallowing, has often been seen in cases of rabies.

Sufferers don’t truly fear water. The rabies virus triggers a severe muscle spasm around the throat. Those who’ve succumbed to the encephalitic stage of rabies display a severe aversion to and difficulty with swallowing, making it appear as though they have a fear of water. Rabies is highly fatal disease if untreated, so if you’ve sustained a bite from a suspected rabid animal, go to your local hospital immediately.

2 Completely Ignoring A Body Part

People can be forgetful; they forget their car keys, their wives, and their kids. But what happens when you feel that a certain body part, or an entire side of your body, doesn’t exist? Don’t say it can’t happen. People who’ve suffered strokes and were lucky enough to survive often display this symptom.

For some, it’s as minor as not utilizing the affected body part in reflex movements. In more extreme cases, it actually leads to all-out denial that a left or right side even exists. Studies have shown that the condition goes beyond the affected body part simply being weak but rather is rooted in a portion of the brain going haywire.

1 Self-Mutilation

A lot of times, we take the act of self-harm to be a symptom with psychological roots. The individual may be troubled or is coping with numerous problems. However, individuals may go as far as to mutilate their own lips, tongue, and fingers when afflicted with Lesch-Nyhan syndrome (LNS).

LNS is a genetic disorder that involves problems with the body’s ability to recycle uric acid, a byproduct of normal cell recycling. The uric acid pools in undesirable areas of the body, such as the brain. This then causes many of the seemingly psychological symptoms that we see—the most obvious of which is gross mutilation of the body.

Dr. Keith Andrew Chan is an internist, video game enthusiast, and writer of many, many weird things. He is often spotted at coffee houses, leeching off their free wifi, and spending time running away from wild bears and sea critters. He writes for cebumd.com and has appeared in several national health publications.

Keep calm, carry on, and maybe wash your hands a little more often. That’s the gist of the advice given to the general public in the event of a deadly epidemic: less panic, less pandemic. But behind the scenes, epidemiologists are in a frantic race against time to track the spread of disease back to its origins and, hopefully, find some answers on how to stop it.

Like an earthquake, every deadly epidemic has an epicenter, a central point where the disaster is set in motion. In the case of an epidemic, a central point is a person, and that person is known as patient zero. Here are 10 of the most famous patient zeros in history.

10 Typhoid Mary

We begin with the most famous patient zero of them all, “Typhoid Mary,” whose real name was Mary Mallon. Mary was just 15 when she emigrated from Ireland to the US in 1884 and found work as a maid.

By 1906, Mary had risen to the position of cook for the wealthy Warren family, who spent their summers at Oyster Bay, Long Island. None of Mary’s employers had had any problems with her culinary offerings, but it was a bit of a coincidence that the people Mary cooked for had a habit of becoming seriously ill.

Of the eight families Mary had worked for before the Warrens, seven of them had experienced cases of typhoid. Mary was found to be a carrier of typhoid fever, but as she was not sick herself, she refused to be quarantined. In 1907, New York was at the center of a typhoid epidemic that affected around 3,000 people, and Mary was thought to be its patient zero.

After two years of forced confinement on North Brother Island, Mary was finally released and took a job (under a false name) as a cook in a maternity hospital. Another typhoid outbreak ensued, at which point Mary was permanently incarcerated on Pest Island in the East River.^[1] She died in isolation on November 11, 1938. Her obituary officially named her as the cause of 51 cases of typhoid and three deaths.

9 Frances Lewis

Cholera was a serious threat to public health in Victorian London. In 1854, over the course of just 10 days, 500 people dropped dead within a few blocks of central London. Symptoms of cholera included vomiting, diarrhea, stomach cramps, and extreme thirst, and a patient who began feeling queasy could be dead that day.

By the end of the cholera epidemic, over 10,000 people were underground, and scientists were desperate to determine where this lethal epidemic originated. Ground zero, they found, was in the diaper of a tiny, five-month-old baby named Frances Lewis.

Local physician John Snow plotted on a map the exact locations where cholera victims had died. Known later as the ghost map, Snow’s map showed that most victims lived close to a water pump on Broad Street. It seems that Frances Lewis’s mother was washing her baby’s soiled diapers in pails of water that she then emptied into the cesspool in front of her house on Broad Street.^[2]

Victorian London was not known for its cleanliness, and the cesspool leaked directly into the local water source, poisoning thousands of the area’s residents. Soon after the pump was condemned, the cholera epidemic came to an end.

8 Mabalo Lokela

Ebola is considered one of the most alarming diseases of the 21st century. Ebola kills by causing its victims to suffer massive internal bleeding. It is a disease for which, even now, we have no cure, no vaccine, and no real idea why it keeps coming back.

The world’s first recorded victim of Ebola was a teacher named Mabalo Lokela. Mabalo lived in the town of Yambuku in the Democratic Republic of Congo and returned from a trip north in August 1976 with a high fever. Initially, medics diagnosed Mabalo with malaria. But after two weeks of dreadful symptoms—uncontrollable vomiting; trouble breathing; and bleeding eyes, nose, and mouth—he died.

Unfortunately, the Ebola virus did not die with him, and many of the people who came into contact with Mabalo during his sickness contracted the disease. As a result, around 90 percent of the people in Mabalo’s village died, and the world reeled as brave epidemiologists tried to work out how to stop this killer virus from spreading.^[3]

The most devastating outbreak of Ebola the world has ever seen happened in 2014 and claimed the lives of over 5,000 people in one year. As of the end of the outbreak in June 2016, more than 11,000 people had died from the disease, five times more than all other Ebola outbreaks combined. The West Africa Ebola outbreak of 2014 was traced to a two-year-old boy living in a remote village deep in the Guinean forest region.^[4] Emile Ouamouno’s death was quickly followed by his three-year-old sister, Philomene, their pregnant mother, their grandmother, and many other people from his village. But it would be months before Ebola got the worldwide attention it badly needed.

7 Dr. Liu Jianlin

Over the course of nine months, SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) crept steadily around the globe, taking a total of 774 lives across 37 countries and leaving many gravely ill. First diagnosed in the Guangdong province of China in November 2002, SARS was initially described as “atypical pneumonia.” Flu-like at first, the vicious virus quickly developed into full-on pneumonia and eventually respiratory failure.

As is often the case, we had no idea what we were dealing with until it was too late. By the time the world started to notice this contagious disease, a certain Dr. Liu Jianlin, a medical doctor from Guangdong province, had checked into Hong Kong’s Metropole Hotel.

Described later as hyper infectious, Dr. Liu is believed to have infected around 12 people at the Metropole before dying of respiratory failure. One of those 12 people was a lady named Sui-Chu Kwan, a resident of Scarborough, Ontario, who—feeling right as rain—boarded a plane for Canada two days after bumping into Dr. Liu.^[5]

6 Edgar Enrique Hernandez

“Kid Zero” may sound like the name of a superhero sidekick, but it was actually the nickname of the first human infected with swine flu. Four-year-old Edgar Enrique Hernandez from Mexico tested positive for H1N1 swine flu in March 2009. Soon, photos of his smiling face were on the front page of every newspaper.

In Edgar’s hometown, the rural town of La Gloria, several hundred people fell ill in a matter of weeks, and two children died. According to the World Health Organization, H1N1 has caused or contributed to the deaths of over 18,000 people as of January 2016. However, the CDC reports that the death count worldwide may actually be between 150,000 and 575,000.

Many residents of La Gloria blame nearby industrial hog farms for the outbreak, but the jury is still out on whether H1N1 originated in the pigpens. Also unconfirmed is whether little Edgar was actually the first human to contract the H1N1 swine flu.^[6] Regardless, the local authorities of La Gloria recently erected a bronze statue of Edgar in an interesting attempt to bring tourists to the town famous for swine flu.

5 Patient Zero MERS

The MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) epidemic in South Korea was officially declared over in July 2015. Also known as “camel flu,” this deadly respiratory disease was first detected in Saudi Arabia and is thought to be derived from bats. No one knows the identity of the first victim of MERS in Saudi Arabia. But when the virus hit South Korea, causing a serious epidemic that killed 36 people, it was easy to trace the source to one man.

Patient zero in the South Korean MERS outbreak first sought medical attention for a nasty cough and high fever on May 11, 2015. At a clinic in his hometown of Asan, south of Seoul, doctors examined the patient over the course of four days but were at a loss as to the cause of his ill health.

On May 20th, the patient sought help at the Samsung Medical Center in Seoul and revealed that he had recently returned from Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. Finally, he was correctly diagnosed with the highly contagious virus. By then, patient zero had infected the two men who shared his hospital room, his doctor, some people sharing his hospital ward, and their visiting relatives.^[7]

There were 186 confirmed cases of MERS in South Korea. Thousands of people were quarantined to stop the spread of the virus, a precaution that brought chaos to the city of Seoul.

4 Gaetan Dugas

The most infamous patient zero on our list is a man named Gaetan Dugas. He was an Air Canada flight attendant and was identified by scientists in the late 1970s as the first person to bring the HIV/AIDS epidemic to the US.

Journalist Randy Shilts publicly named Dugas in his 1987 book And The Band Played On. Upon the book’s release, the New York Post covered the story with the headline, “The Man Who Gave Us AIDS,” forever linking the name Gaetan Dugas with the devastation of the HIV/AIDs epidemic.^[8]

However, scientists have now learned that it is doubtful that patient zero in the HIV/AIDS epidemic was Gaetan Dugas. A recent genetic study using blood samples taken in the late 1970s has concluded that the virus probably came to New York City in 1970 and was linked to existing viruses then present in Haiti and other Caribbean countries.

AIDS is not the cause of death of those infected, but it plays a contributing factor. Most people die from another condition that becomes worse with their weakened immune systems. As of February 2020, about 30 million people worldwide have died from AIDS-related illnesses.

3 Patient Zero SARS-Cov-2

By December 2019, the first cases of SARS-Cov-2, or COVID-19, had appeared in China. The coronavirus, which caused the global pandemic, likely originated at a Chinese wet market. However, there is still so much to be discovered about the virus and its origins.

According to the Chinese government, patient zero may have been identified as a 55-year-old Chinese man from Hubei province. In late 2019, rumors about a strange new flu were beginning to circulate in Wuhan. On China’s social media platform WeChat, users had been discussing their coughs and colds for weeks with words like “SARS” and “shortness of breath” spiking from mid-November.

By early December, a so-called “pneumonia of unknown origin” had been identified, and patients—many of them workers or customers of a well-known market—were finding their way to the hospitals in Wuhan for treatment.^[9] While most people have no or few symptoms, some get very ill and can even die. What begins as a cough can lead to shortness of breath. In more severe cases, acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) may occur after about 10 days after initial symptoms begin. At this point, hospitalization for breathing treatments and intubation may be required.

The physical and mental effects of the virus are still being studied, and it may be years before we truly understand the virus. As of May 2021, there have been more than 150 million confirmed cases and more than three million deaths worldwide due to COVID-19.

2 Private Albert Gitchell

Several nasty viruses spring to mind when pondering deadly pandemics—the bubonic plague, cholera, Ebola, and typhoid. But what about the benign-sounding Spanish flu? The Spanish flu is one of the most devastating pandemics the world has ever seen and is thought to have killed between 20 and 40 million people.

Yes, you read that right. Million. In the year 1918, with much of the world overwhelmed by World War I, the Spanish flu spread silently from person to person, eventually infecting up to one-third of the world’s population.

It all began on Monday, March 11, 1918, with a cough. A nasty cough coming from Private Albert Gitchell, a cook at the U.S. Army Base in Fort Riley, Kansas. Military medics knew how quickly a virus could spread in camp conditions and had Gitchell immediately quarantined. But it was too little too late.

Gitchell had cooked dinner for hundreds of soldiers stationed at the camp the night before, and by midday, over 100 soldiers were sick. Almost half of the soldiers died from their symptoms, and the flu spread like wildfire throughout the U.S. and Europe, across enemy lines, and into the rest of the world.^[10]

1 Goodwoman Phillips

Goodwoman Phillips was not the first person to die of the bubonic plague, and she certainly wasn’t the last. In fact, the bubonic plague8 Fascinating Facts About Plague Doctors is still present today. Annually, there are hundreds of cases and deaths, but it does not become the pandemic of previous centuries—like the Black Death in the 14th century—as it can be treated with modern antibiotics. Between 2000 and 2010, there were 21,725 people affected, with 1,612 deaths worldwide.

Goodwoman Phillips earned her inclusion on our list of patient zeros as she was the first person to officially die of “plague” during the Great Plague of London in 1665–66. Thanks to the work of John Graunt, a London draper with an eye for statistics, deaths from the bubonic plague were meticulously recorded. All told, more than 68,000 deaths from the plague were recorded in a city of around 450,000 people, over 15 percent of the population.^[11]

According to the people of London, the plague that befell the city was the result of two specific occurrences: the appearance of a comet in the skies over London and the coronation of King Charles II. The comet was seen as a bad omen that would bring about the end of days, while the plague was rumored to follow a coronation as a sign that the new king did not have God’s favor.

We know now that the Great Plague of London was actually the result of squalid living conditions that put people near plague-infected rats that were covered in plague-infected fleas.

Toni Marie Ford is a freelance writer, cinema lover, and slow travel enthusiast from the UK who has been enjoying a nomadic lifestyle since early 2014. Visit her blog, www.worldandshe.com, or follow her on Twitter or Instagram.

With modern medicine, we often become overconfident, believing we can conquer any ailment. Recent outbreaks indicate that we are not as secure as we believe. Diseases once thought conquered are making a comeback.

Their spread is due to many factors: globalization, technology, and the anti-vaccine movement. These outbreaks are not just found in remote jungle corners. Deadly diseases are also popping up in developed countries—even the United States. These outbreaks indicate that no one is safe from disease.

10 Leptospirosis

In 2009, the Philippines were ravaged twice: once by tropical storm Ketsana and again by “rat fever.” Leptospirosis is a bacterial disease spread through contact with animal urine. The warm floodwaters of post-Ketsana Philippines made an ideal breeding ground.

Leptospirosis killed 157 people there. Symptoms include headaches, fever, kidney failure, and profuse bleeding from the lungs. The mortality rate is 5–10 percent, and things might be getting worse. A 2015 outbreak in Mumbai, India, had a mortality rate of 33 percent.

This is not just a disease of tropical floodwaters. Dogs in the United States are the latest victims. In 2015, there were canine leptospirosis outbreaks in both California and Colorado. In 2009, the disease devastated the sea lions on the Oregon coast. Raccoons are major carriers, and up to 90 percent of urban rats carry the bacteria.

How long before this spreads to the United States’ human population?

9 Syphilis

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas—unless it’s venereal disease. A recent spike in Sin City syphilis infections reveals a new vulnerability to this ancient disease. It is a complex, multistage bacterial disease.

In its early stages, syphilis can easily be treated with penicillin. However, if left untreated, the later stages include a horrific set of symptoms: inability to control muscles, dementia, rashes, blindness, and death.

Researchers blame the rise of syphilis on changing sex behavior. Smartphone-based hookup apps are making anonymous sex easier and more frequent. Due to effective HIV medication, condoms are also being used less often.

Most of the reported cases are coming from gay men. Currently, Vegas has the highest rate of syphilis infection in the western United States. Only Washington, DC, surpasses it nationwide.

8 Measles

In 2000, the United States declared that measles had been “eliminated.” However, in 2014, a massive outbreak started in California’s Disneyland. Eighty-four individuals in 14 states were infected.

As of late 2016, there were 22 confirmed cases in Arizona alone. This doubles the annual rate of infections in the US. This is a grave concern because the disease can lead to encephalitis, blindness, and death.

The comeback is due to two factors: infections from abroad and the anti-vaccine movement. Measles infects 22 million worldwide each year. Epidemiologists traced the epicenter of the latest outbreak to Eloy Detention Center in Arizona. They believe that Patient Zero was from outside US borders.

Beginning in the 1960s, the US effectively eliminated measles with a comprehensive vaccination program. However, many are now refusing this precaution. When infected individuals come into contact with an unvaccinated population, the results can be disastrous.

7 Diphtheria

In 2015, Spain had its first case of diphtheria in 28 years. The victim was an eight-year-old boy from Catalonia. Despite Spain’s free and widely available vaccine program, the parents had decided not to inoculate their son.

In the 16th and 17th centuries, diphtheria ravaged the Iberian Peninsula. One particularly bad outbreak was known as the “year of strangulations.”

Caused by Cornynebacterium diphtheriea, diphtheria typically targets young children and adults over 60. It claims the life of 1 in 10 patients infected with the disease.

The bacteria contain a toxin which kills human tissue. It leaves dead membranes that coat the throat, making it hard to breathe and swallow. The toxin can also enter the bloodstream and attack internal organs.

6 Typhoid Fever

Typhoid fever is a deadly bacterial disease related to foodborne salmonella. There are 16–30 million cases a year, resulting in 600,000 deaths. The disease is a particular threat in developing counties with a high population density and inadequate sanitation.

Typhoid fever is usually contracted from eating or drinking contaminated water. It symptoms are high fever, abdominal pain, headaches, and nausea. It is particularly virulent among children and has a high infant mortality rate. The disease can be treated with better sanitation, safe drinking water, and improved hygiene.

Typhoid is on the rise, even in the United States. Oklahoma recently saw an outbreak just north of the state capital. The epidemic was traced back to a single family. It was believed that they contracted the disease outside the United States. Florida has also seen a rapid increase in typhoid.

5 Polio

The Americas, Europe, the western Pacific, and Southeast Asia have all been declared polio free by the World Health Organization. This gives the illusion that polio is a thing of the past. It is not.

As the World Health Organization was on the verge of declaring Africa polio free, two cases emerged in Nigeria. The remote northern Borno State is under the control of Boko Haram, the radical Islamic militants. Health workers have limited windows to vaccinate the populace, usually after Boko Haram abandons a location. Afghanistan and Pakistan have also seen outbreaks of this “wild” polio.

Ukraine also had a recent polio outbreak. What differentiates their crisis is that it was contracted from the weakened polio strains in the vaccine. Given that only half of Ukraine’s population is immunized, this could have grave results.

4 Bubonic Plague

The bubonic plague is horrific. Symptoms include fever, abdominal pain, swollen lymph nodes, and nausea. It was responsible for the Black Death of the 13th century, which killed 60 percent of the European population. Another 19th-century epidemic killed an estimated 10 million.

One recent fatal case caused Chinese officials to quarantine the entire city of Yumen. Last year, an outbreak in Madagascar left 39 dead. Arizona, Colorado, and New Mexico are also hotbeds for the disease. There is an average of seven cases per year in the United States. However, there were more than 15 cases in 2015.

Yersinia pestis, the bacteria that causes the disease, can be successfully treated by antibiotics. Early treatment reduces the mortality rate to 16 percent. However, if left untreated, the fatality rate can be as high as 93 percent. Antibiotic-resistant strains have been identified, causing great concern among epidemiologists.

3 Leprosy

Officially known as Hansen’s disease, leprosy can lead to disfigurement, blindness, and even death. Considered by many to be an ancient ailment, leprosy is alive and well. The United States has an average of 150 cases a year.

Most thought these were the result of exposure to the disease in remote corners of the globe, where leprosy lingers. However, recent studies have revealed that these are homegrown infections passed on by the most unlikely of sources: armadillos.

The high number of leprosy infections in southern states prompted epidemiologists to explore the possible link to the armored critters. Analysis revealed that infected armadillos and humans share a genetically similar strain. The unique strain was found in 25 human patients and 28 armadillos. Fortunately, the disease is treatable with antibiotics if caught early.

2 Dengue Fever

Dengue fever is ravaging the tropics. This mosquito-borne disease causes fever, joint pain, and possibly death. In late 2016, a 13-year-old girl in Karachi passed away from the disease. This makes her the fourth victim in Pakistan’s recent outbreak.

In 2015, there were 40 dengue fever deaths in Pakistan alone. Worldwide, the yearly death toll is near 20,000. The United States is not immune. In 2015, Hawaii saw the largest outbreak of the disease since it attained statehood, with 261 confirmed cases.

The dengue fever vaccine Dengvaxia recently hit the market after 20 years of development. Unfortunately, this vaccine might be as deadly as the disease. Dengue fever works by antibody-dependent enhancement. The antibodies developed from first exposure are not only useless, but they actually aid the virus the second time around.

People need to be careful as to how they administer the vaccine, or it could lead to more hospital visits. It is most effective when given to people who have already had the disease.

1 Cholera

Cholera is deadly diarrhea. Before 2010, Haiti had not experienced a rash of cholera in over 100 years. However, in 2010, infections sprang up along the Meille River. Over 400 UN peacekeepers were housed in this area. They were fresh from Nepal, which was in the midst of a cholera crisis. The base’s waste flowed into a part of the Meille.

The United Nation’s official apology came late for the 10,000 killed in the outbreak. The UN could have reduced the epidemic by 91 percent if they had treated the peacekeepers for cholera—at a cost of $1 per patient. The Haitian outbreak is still not under control.

But this disease is not limited to underdeveloped tropical backwaters. South Korea recently reported its first homegrown cholera infection in 15 years. During the 19th century, this disease ravaged the region. It killed 400,000—nearly half the population. South Korean officials do not believe the recent outbreak will lead to an epidemic. But no one can be certain.

+Further Reading

These diseases aren’t the only things making a come back! So are these lists from the archives:

10 Dreadful Symptoms Of Deadly Diseases
Top 10 Gruesome Disfiguring Diseases
Top 10 Odd Diseases With No Known Cause
10 Horrifying Diseases You Definitely Don’t Want To Catch

Abraham Rinquist is the Executive Director of the Winooski, Vermont, branch of the Helen Hartness Flanders Folklore Society. He is the coauthor of Codex Exotica and Song-Catcher: The Adventures of Blackwater Jukebox.

The plague outbreak of the mid-1300s, known widely as the Black Death because of the black, festering sores it produced on the bodies of its victims, was a terrible pandemic. It wasn’t the first outbreak of the plague, but it was far and away the deadliest. Though history tends to focus on its devastation of Europe, the Black Death killed millions in a swath spanning three continents, from the British Isles to Egypt and all the way to China. Estimates of the death toll across the whole of Eurasia range from 75 to 200 million. It reduced the population of Europe by 30 to 60 percent and the population of the world as a whole from an estimated 450 million down to approximately 300–350 million between the 1340s and the mid-1350s.

The impact of the Black Death was so tremendous and destructive that it led Christians to believe they were being punished for their sins. It wiped out entire villages, towns, and cities. It was a depopulation event unlike anything seen before or since. Listed here are ten contributing factors to the lethality of the Black Death.

10 Easily Carried by Fleas

For most of its evolutionary history, Yersinia pestis, the bacterium responsible for the plague, was no more mobile than Ebola or tuberculosis, so outbreaks seldom occurred, were confined to small areas, and claimed lower numbers of victims. That was back when human-to-human transfer was required for the disease to spread. At some point in recent millennia, a change in the genetic landscape of Y. pestis occurred that gave it some serious wheels: It developed a resistance to toxins in the gut of the flea.^[1]

This gave it the ability to spread with and thrive within fleas as they traveled the globe on the backs of rats, cats, and otherwise. With this newfound vector, the Black Death was able to spread far beyond where it had beforehand. The rest is history.

9 Filthy Living Conditions

Imagine a world with no sewers, no running water, and rats. Lots of rats. Where rats are found, fleas tend to follow. In the middle years of the 14th century, the odds were good that many of those fleas carried our good friend Y. pestis. If you were living anywhere in Europe, Asia, or North Africa at the time, the odds were also quite good that you lived in squalor and had little (if any) means of avoiding contact with the plague or anyone infected with it.

In Europe, in particular, people lived in close quarters with one another and often shared their living spaces with all sorts of vermin. They seldom washed, and they lived close to their own filth. Gone were the baths, sewers, and aqueducts of Roman times. Returning to prehistoric levels of filth left the people ripe for infection.^[2]

8 The Silk Road

Named for the luxuriant threads spun by the Asian silkworm that merchants carried along its 6,400-kilometer (4,000 mi) span, the Silk Road was founded during China’s Han dynasty. Though the route was a marvel of commerce and diplomacy and allowed for the exchange of goods, languages, ideas, and customs between just about every society from the Atlantic to the Pacific, it also served as a superhighway for infectious diseases.

Historians and epidemiologists alike agree that the plague started somewhere in present-day China or Mongolia and then followed the Silk Road and had reached Crimea by 1346. Though outbreaks of bubonic plague had occurred before in recorded history, most notably in the Plague of Justinian in the sixth century, they hadn’t occurred in a world half so connected as that of the mid-1300s. With the blessings of trade and cultural exchange came the curse of microbial exchange.^[3]

7 The Siege of Kaffa

Whereas the Silk Road was a peaceful means by which the Black Death made its way to Europe and Africa, the Mongol conquests of the High Middle Ages were a far more cataclysmic vector. Beginning with the rise of Genghis Khan in the late 12th and early 13th centuries, the Mongol conquests took Eurasia by storm. Within the lifetime of Genghis, the Mongols, masters of the horse and composite bow, had laid waste to an unspeakably large swath of land stretching from the Korean peninsula to Hungary. After Genghis Khan died, the empire fragmented into different factions, called khanates, held by his numerous sons.

One of these divisions, the Golden Horde, stretched from Siberia into Eastern Europe. It covered the Crimean Peninsula, in which lay the city of Kaffa. A group of Italian merchants was granted special privileges for the control of Kaffa, which proved beneficial for the Mongols in that it gave them access to European markets. After relations between the Italian merchants and the natives began to deteriorate, the Mongols laid siege to Kaffa.

During the siege, the Black Death began to make its way through the Mongol ranks. Rather than letting the disease get the best of them, they made it work for them. True to form as masters of murderous ingenuity, the Mongols loaded the plague-ridden corpses of their soldiers onto their catapults and launched them over the city walls in an early instance of germ warfare. This, of course, brought the plague into the city, just as the merchants were fleeing back to Sicily.^[4] It is generally agreed that the siege of Kaffa was a watershed moment for the expansion of the Black Death into Europe.

6 Climate Change

Many experts argue that climate change, not fleas and vermin, was the preeminent culprit for the deadliness of the Black Death. Whether or not it was the foremost factor, it certainly had a part to play. The onset of the pandemic coincided with the end of the Medieval Warm Period, an era of warmer summers and milder winters lasting from about 900 to 1300. The period allowed for more bountiful harvests and made people less susceptible to illness.

Researchers have determined that this stretch of mild weather was caused by an alteration of global heat distribution through changes in pressure systems. The normalization of said systems pushed much of the Northern Hemisphere back into a cooler, rainier period, which led to lower crop yields and cold, wet conditions that left people far and wide ripe for the plague.^[5]

5 Famine

When the Black Death came around, it had the proverbial red carpet rolled out for it to come in and wreak havoc, and famine had a huge part to play in that. In the early years of the 14th century, a period of hunger aptly dubbed “the Great Famine” struck the entirety of the European continent, ranging from Italy to Russia. The famine, which started in 1315, was triggered by an unusually cold winter, which gave way to an unusually cool and rainy spring and a subsequent summer, which followed suit. This, of course, decimated crop yields across the continent, and people were left starving. An estimated 10 to 25 percent of Europe’s population perished in the two years that followed.

Though the severity of the famine had abated a bit by 1317, the cooler, wetter conditions lingered through the decades leading up to the Black Death, and people were left malnourished, with weakened immune systems that could do little to stave off the ravages of Y. pestis.^[6]

4 People Were Already Weak From Other Diseases

As previously mentioned, the citizens of mid-14th-century Eurasia were already weak and hungry by the time the plague rolled around. Therefore, it would stand to reason that they were often sick in the years leading up to the big show, which, of course, they were. Diseases like typhus, smallpox, and tuberculosis thrived in the confines of their immunodeficient hosts, leaving them weak, weary, and ill-equipped to resist the plague when it came around.

From studying the corpses of plague victims, researchers have determined that many of those who died from it were concurrently ill with the aforementioned diseases and more. They were killed by a terrible cocktail of contagions.^[7]

3 Medieval Medicine Was Lacking

One of the foremost accounts of the Black Death was issued to King Philip VI of France by the medical council of Paris. It claimed that the Black Death was caused by an unfortunate alignment of three planets in the heavens, which caused the spreading of a “great pestilence” in the air.^[8] People genuinely thought that the black, festering sores and internal bleeding wrought by the plague were brought on by bad air. One can imagine how such a society might have fared in treating a profoundly infectious disease to which it had never been exposed.

Between the iron grip of the Catholic Church on the scientific community, the loss of medical advancements made by prior civilizations such as the Romans and Greeks, and a general inclination toward superstition, medieval medicine was no match for the Black Death.

2 It Had Three Different Forms

As deadly diseases went, the Black Death was something of a Swiss Army knife. It didn’t just go after the blood or the lungs or the lymphatic system—it went after all three, in various forms and stages. Scientists have identified the plague as having three different types: bubonic, the most common and best-known, which caused lymph nodes all over the body to turn into bulbous, black pustules; septicemic, which infected the blood; and pneumonic, which ran the lungs afoul.^[9]

All three forms were accompanied by acute fever, and victims often vomited blood. It’s no surprise that a virulence so versatile had such a prodigious kill rate.

1 No Natural Immunity

Ever catch a case of the plague? Smallpox? Tuberculosis? The answer for just about everyone reading is almost certainly no. You probably don’t know anyone who’s been infected, either. You can thank immunization and, in some cases, eradication for that. However, circa 1350, there was no plague vaccine, and the disease was so novel that most people had essentially no natural resistance to it. If people had been exposed to it intermittently over thousands of years, as was the case with afflictions like smallpox, their immune systems might have been better prepared, and the lives of millions could have been spared.

As it stood, no such luxury was afforded, and all but those who avoided infection altogether and a lucky few who bore beneficial mutations that gave them a greater degree of resilience to Y. pestis were doomed to perish. The genetic legacy of the Black Death is evident today, as researchers have discovered that roughly ten percent of Europeans are immune to HIV, a benefit that they believe to be a genetic relic of the mutation that saved their ancestors from one of the closest things to an extinction event that modern man has ever seen.^[10]

Trevor Graydon is just your run-of-the-mill grad school dropout trying to make sense of the post-academic world.