While walking down the darkened street late at night, have you ever had that gnawing fear as to whether or not the posse of raccoons rummaging through the trashcans nearby, staring at you with their beady yellow eyes, are ready and waiting for the right moment to pounce? Or have you ever had your fingertip accidentally pierced by the sharp fangs of a squirrel while feeding it walnuts and had to rush to the hospital on a nurses advice only to be told by the doctor that squirrels do not carry the “deadly virus?” Have you ever been bit in the very tender thin space of skin in between your thumb and index finger by a baby penguin while feeding it fish at the Omaha Zoo? Ok, the last one is obviously not related to rabies as the “virus” discriminates as to which animals it infects. Whether or not the squirrel can get or transmit rabies depends upon who you ask. In any case, these are all true experiences for me and yes, I have been bitten by numerous animals while feeding them. Like many, I have encountered the fear of being infected by a bite from a potentially rabid animal and that if I waited too long to receive treatment, it would be too late to stop the “virus” before it invades my cerebral cortex and causes me to turn into a crazed barking dog-man. Fortunately, not one of my comedically unfortunate puncture wounds left me to succumb to any disease. As I would later find out, my fears were in fact as irrational as the myths surrounding rabies which are built upon a foundation of fraud and pseudoscience………(click on link below for full article)