How do you weaponize a rabbit?

A bacteria found in rabbits could be turned into a potent bioweapon by terrorists. In fact, it's been done before.

Bunny
(Image credit: (Thinkstock))

There are four major infectious agents that officials fear terrorists will turn into potent bioweapons. The first three you know — smallpox, anthrax, and the plague. The fourth? An itty bitty bacterium that wikes to wive in bunny wabbits.

Don't let its host of choice fool you — tularemia is a serious disease. Humans can contract the nastiness through the bites of ticks and flies or handling the corpses of infected bunnies. Failure to cook said bunnies thoroughly will also make you sick. And that's not all. Back in 2000, 15 residents of Martha's Vineyard came down with "rabbit fever" in a single season — an outbreak thought to have started when someone ran over an infected rabbit with a lawnmower.

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Jason Bittel serves up science for picky eaters on his website, BittelMeThis.com. He writes frequently for Slate and OnEarth. And he's probably suffering from poison ivy as you read this.