Brain Eating Amoeba
cwilcox | May 13, 2009Ok - I confess. There's only one reason this parasite is even remotely sci-fi worthy. Though, to be fair, it's a pretty good one: it kills you by eating your brains.
Meet Naegleria fowleri. A happy, free-living protist that lives in warm fresh water - at least until a very unlucky person dunks their head in it.
Naegleria has three stages of its life: a flagellate, and amoeba, and a cyst. In the water, it is in its infectious, flagellate form called a "trophozoite". It reproduces asexually, and swims around quite happily if the water is fresh and warm (over 75 degrees). If conditions are poor…