for coexistence with viral parasites through a daily cycle that elevates metabolism and body temperature analogous to the febrile response in other mammals. On an evolutionary scale, this host-virus interaction might have resulted in the large diversity of zoonotic viruses in bats, possibly through bat viruses adapting to be more tolerant of the fever response and less virulent to their natural hosts.” Project Deep Forest According to the FAO (Food and Agriculture Organization), roughly 18 million acres of forest (roughly the size of Panama) are lost every year due to deforestation. Increased contact between humans and the animal species whose habitat is being destroyed has led to increases in zoonotic disease. EcoHealth Alliance scientists are testing species for pathogens in areas with very little, moderate, and complete deforestation in order to track potential outbreaks. This data is used to promote the preservation of natural lands and diminish the negative effects of land-use change. Project DEFUSE Project DEFUSE was a rejected DARPA grant application, which proposed to sample bat coronaviruses from various locations in China. To evaluate whether bat coronaviruses might spillover into the human population, the grantees proposed to create chimeric coronaviruses which were mutated in different locations, before evaluating their ability to infect human cells in the laboratory. One proposed alteration was to modify bat coronaviruses to insert a cleavage site for the Furin protease at the S1/S2 junction of the spike (S) viral protein. Another part of the grant aimed to create noninfectious protein-based vaccines containing just the spike protein of dangerous coronaviruses. These vaccines would then be administered to bats in caves in southern China to help prevent future outbreaks. Co-investigators on the rejected proposal included Ralph Baric from UNC, Linfa Wang from Duke–NUS Medical School in Singapore, and Shi Zhengli from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. See also Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust Wildlife Preservation Canada References External links Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust Wildlife Preservation Canada Environmental organizations based in the United States Environmental microbiology