MELBOURNE, Dec. 29 (UPI) -- Australian scientists have found a way to break through the invisibility cloak of the world's deadliest malaria parasite.

The parasite, formally plasmodium falciparum, sneaks past the human immune system with the help of a wardrobe of invisibility cloaks, Science Daily says.

International research scholars at Howard Hughes Medical Institute in Australia have determined how P. falciparum can turn on one cloaking gene and keep dozens of others silent until each is needed in turn.

Their findings, published in the journal Nature, reveal the mechanism of action thought to be the key to the parasite's survival.

A DNA sequence near the start of a cloaking gene, known as the gene's promoter, not only turns up production of its protein, but also keeps all other cloaking genes under wraps, the researchers say.

"The promoter is all you need for activation and silencing," says scholar Alan Cowman.

Malaria kills an estimated 2.7 million people annually, 75 percent of them children in Africa.

Study: Hostile drivers same outside car

ST. PAUL, Minn., Dec. 29 (UPI) -- University of Minnesota researchers have found that most aggressive drivers also tend to be hostile outside their cars.

"People don't change their behavior dramatically when they get in the car," Kathleen Harder, co-author of the study, told the St. Paul (Minn.) Pioneer Press.

She and two others administered a battery of personality, emotional and behavioral questions to a group of 710 drivers between the ages of 18 and 45.

They discovered that a group who scored as "high hostile" in the survey became "more emotionally activated while driving" than people labeled as "low hostile," Harder said.

As a group, the high-hostiles reported driving after drinking more often than the low-hostiles, taking more risks while driving and becoming angrier at slow drivers, police, discourteous drivers and road construction, she said.

Bullied children abuse alcohol

EUGENE, Ore., Dec. 29 (UPI) -- A new study out of Oregon indicates children who are bullied in middle school are more likely to abuse substances in high schools.

Researchers at the Oregon Research Institute studied 223 boys and girls in grades five through seven and followed them into high school. They found frequent verbal harassment is the norm in middle school rather than physical harassment and both forms decrease once a student gets to high school.

The study found verbal harassment in middle school made it three times more likely a teen would abuse alcohol in high school.

The study was published in the November issue of the Journal of Early Adolescence.

Famed oncologist dies of cancer

NEW HAVEN, Conn., Dec. 29 (UPI) -- One of the best-known oncologists in the country lost his own fight with cancer this week, dying of melanoma at the age of 47.

Dr. John Murren was chief of the Yale Medical Oncology Outpatient Clinic and director of the Lung Cancer Unit at the Yale Cancer Center. He was also the inspiration behind the Nevada Cancer Institute founded by his brother, Jim Murren, president and chief financial officer of MGM Mirage. (NYSE:MGM)

Jim Murren told the Las Vegas Sun that his brother had melanoma, a rare and deadly form of skin cancer, seven years ago. The cancer recurred just before Thanksgiving.

John Murren sat on the Nevada institute's board and recruited much of its staff.

"Cancer only took out my brother because he was too damn good," Jim Murren told the newspaper. "This is a battle. He was winning the war, and they took him off the field. But there are plenty of Murrens behind him."