Malaria spikes with deforestation

Chopping down the rain forest can harm animals such as toucans, golden lion tamarind monkeys and poison dart frogs. Now, add another species to the list–humans. Deforestation in the Brazilian Amazon can lead to malaria epidemics years later, according to a new study from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The findings are some of the most detailed yet to link environmental changes with the spread of disease. The work, published Wednesday in the journal Emerging Infectious Diseases, combined malaria case reports with high-resolution satellite imagery from a remote, sparsely populated region of tropical Brazil about half the size of Rhode Island.