Wow--half of all human deaths from a single organism

The Tenacious Buzz of Malaria: Humans have underestimated the disease for millennia; new research, and new worries

The malaria parasite has been responsible for half of all human deaths since the Stone Age, and one in 14 of us alive today still carry genes that first arose to help protect us from its ravages. Malaria has shaped our trade and settlement patterns, and our demographics. Today, it sickens 300 million every year, and kills nearly 1 million, despite the fact that we've known how to cure it (with parasite-killing drugs) and prevent it (by avoiding mosquito bites) for over a century. And even as the fight against malaria gains momentum, research reveals that malaria's tentacles continue to dig ever deeper.

More bioarchaeology

'Malaria and weak bones' may have killed Tutankhamun
It is the oldest mummified specimen of malaria ever found, but its presence doesn't mean that the disease is what finished him off. However, there are a lot of theories over Tut's death, though, and this is an interesting one.

We need to get the word out regarding years of oppression in Burma

And this is one aspect of the crisis there, the medical challenge in an area plagued by forced evacuations, rapes, killings--and deadly parasites, and what some wonderful people are doing to counteract the disease killers in spite of the human ones. Please read this article in Men's Health.

The Doctor, the Dictator, and the Deadly Mosquito