Black Snake Moan is a 2007 film written and directed by Craig Brewer. It was filmed in and around Memphis, Tennessee, and stars Samuel L. Jackson and Christina Ricci. The title of the film derives from the 1927 Blind Lemon Jefferson song, while the plot is loosely based on George Eliot's 1861 novel Silas Marner.

"All reptiles (turtles, lizards, snakes) and amphibians (frogs, salamanders), are commonly contaminated with Salmonella," says Joseph C. Paige, D.V.M., a Consumer Safety Officer in the Food and Drug Administration's Center for Veterinary Medicine.

The FDA claims to "protect" us from snake-oil salesmen of every stripe, yet when it comes to being able to choose an item of food that is among the most basic and prevalent in any diet, economic considerations trump safety.

Snakes have been known to survive periods of up to two years without food, but it was not clear how. Now a biologist has shown it's the way they conserve energy.

On the edge of a pond, lived a salamander who had a habit of making himself invisible whenever he left his burrowed-out hole, mostly to avoid large snakes looking for food.

Recently in Japan, a group of scientists at the Japanese National Food Research Institute led by Nobuya Shirai turned their attention to snake oil as well. In 2002, in Fisheries Science, they evaluated the composition of oil from the Erabu sea snake—the source of snake oil in traditional Chinese medicine.