Return Of The Bible Plagues

The ninth Bible plague meant three days of darkness, nowadays commonly believed to have been caused by a sandstorm. Sandstorms have ravaged the face of the earth for millions of years and transformed entire continents. Grains of sand from deserts are often blown huge distances, carrying with them not only fungi and viruses but also pollutants and environmental toxins. Beijing suffers particularly badly from violent sandstorms and the Chinese government has launched an ambitious program of prevention.

To punish the Egyptian Pharaoh for enslaving the Israelites and refusing to let them leave, God sent down ten plagues on Egypt. The fourth was the plague of locusts. Hans-Joerg Ferenz of the University of Halle in Germany is researching ways of combating locust plagues and has found, that under certain conditions, solitary locusts develop into swarming locusts.

In the Bible, God is said to have sent swarms of flies upon the Egyptians. Nowadays swarms of mosquitoes still descend upon us. The females inject the malaria parasite, plasmodium, which reproduces rapidly in the blood. Recurring bouts of fever weaken the victims until they die. The danger of dying of malaria is particularly high in eastern Africa. At the Kenya Research Institute scientists are trying to establish what it is exactly that attracts mosquitoes.