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>> and the signal to all sorts of cells that have not become infected, a virus is here. turn on your defense system. >> and typically this manifests in inflammation. >> the in humans inflammation helps fight fever. too long, it can do more harm than good. it can even cause death. >> typically more than half the damage that results in disease tends to be the damage of the immune system attacking the disease itself. >> that's how the disease stops. >> but bats' immune systems don't respond the same way as humans. >> it seems that bats are able to mount robust immune responses but not experience ...

In bracken cave, in north america, over the last decade and a half, bat populations have been plummeting, all because of an outbreak they've been fighting of a disease called white nose syndrome. >> it's a cold-loving fungus that grows on the bat when the bats are hibernating in the wintertime. and unfortunately, this has affected something on the order of a dozen different species of north american bats. in some cases populations have declined over 90%. >> really? that's huge. >> it's huge. yes. it's a terrible threat to bats. and ironically, it's a disease that we brought to bats. the fungus...

Some bats eat insects, others fruit or even fish and frogs. these species, some of them are living right next on each other. >> absolutely. one square mile of rain forest in for instance the brazilian amazon could have 100 species of bat. >> the smallest bat in the world, it is this tiny thing in thailand that weighs less than a penny. and the biggest bat in the world has more than a six-foot wing span. there is a bat that lives in the cloud forests of ecuador that has the longest tongue of any mammal. this thing has a tongue that is 1 1/2 times the length of its body. if you stick your arm st...

One of the big problems in europe and the u.s. used to be wild rabid dogs. >> ancient, you know, medical experts developed a lot of odd ideas about how you would cure rabies. they used to believe that one way to stop rabies from killing you was to take a hair from the tail of the rabid dog and insert it into the bite wound, and this is the origin of the phrase "hair of the dog" which we talk about in the context of hangover treatment. >> then along came louis pasteur in the mid 19th century. he'd been working on a vaccine for years and eventual lly decid to try it out on a young boy who had be...

Scientists believe covid-19 may have had its roots in a community of horseshoe bats in southeastern china. these particular bats represent a very small subset of horseshoe bats, all named for the shape of their noses. there are actually dozens of varieties of horseshoe bats living in a number places, including the temperate and tropical regions ever southern europe, africa and asia. in fact, there's incredible variety among bat species. bats can be found living all around the world and every continent except antarctica. however, the diversity and unique abilities of bats is also what makes the...