Sometimes even bats need a sick day.
Bats are renowned for the ability to be infected with viruses that can be deadly to people without showing signs of the diseases themselves. Ebola virus, Nipah virus and coronaviruses, including relatives of the one that causes COVID-19, are just some of the pathogens linked to certain kinds of bats.
But this bat superpower has its limits. An analysis of bat infections shows that the flying mammals don’t broadly stave off disease. Various bats can fall severely ill when infected with some viruses, including ones that rarely kill people, researchers report September 1 at bioRxiv.org. Bats seem to be on par with