In Costa Rica, El Niño has a strange side effect: More snakebites.
Both the hot and cold phases of the El Niño Southern Oscillation (known as El Niño and La Niña, respectively) are accompanied by an increase in snakebites in the Central American country, according to a new study published today (Sept. 11) in the journal Science Advances. Here's how the climate cycle might be tied to slithering creatures:Snakes are ectothermic, meaning they get their body heat from outside sources. That means their activity is sensitive to climatological factors.
"Snakebites, probably the most neglected of the neglected tropical diseases, [are] another disease showing changes in [the] face of climate change," study researcher Luis Fernando Chaves, a scientist at the Institute of Tropical Medicine at Nagasaki University in Japan, told Live Science.
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment
You only need to enter your comment once! Comments will appear once they have been moderated. This is so as to stop the would-be comedian who has been spamming the comments here with inane and often offensive remarks. You know who you are!