What Hath God Wrought?
In 1400 B.C., a group of nervous Egyptians saw the Nile turn red.
But
what they thought was blood was actually an algae bloom which killed the
fish,
which prior to that had been living off the eggs of frogs.
Those
uneaten eggs turned into record numbers of baby frogs who subsequently
fled to the land and died.
Their little rotting frog bodies attracted
lice and flies.
The lice carried the bluetongue virus, which killed 70%
of Egypt's livestock.
The flies carried glanders, a bacterial infection
which in humans causes boils.
Soon afterwards, the Nile River Valley was
hit with a three-day sandstorm otherwise known as the plague of
darkness.
During the sandstorm, intense heat can combine with an
approaching cold front to create not only hail,
but also electrical
storms which would have looked to the ancient Egyptians like fire from
the sky.
The subsequent wind would have blown the Ethiopian locust
population off course and right into downtown Cairo.
Hail is wet,
locusts leave droppings spread both on grain, and you have got
mycotoxins.
Dinnertime in ancient Egypt meant the first-born child got
the biggest portion which in this case meant he ate the most toxins, so
he died.
Ten plagues.
Ten scientific explanations.
[Katherine Winter]
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