parasite

As the last Zombie Identification Card was so popular, here's another. As you can see, my art is improving. All criticisms / suggestions welcome. The next will probably be Ampulex, simply because it's a strong visual, but I'd also like to makes some cards referencing other forms of zombification - i.e. Robert G. Heath's attempts to control psychiatric disorders using electrodes implanted into the brain. Sacculina spp is a parasite of crabs.
For long journeys, the shell of a snail hardly seems like the ideal public transport. That is, of course, unless you're an even smaller snail... Yasunori Kano from the University of Miyazaki has found that the babies of Neritina asperulata, a tiny snail just 3 millimetres across, hitchhike on the back of a larger species Neritina pulligera. This living bus is about 2 centimetres long, and dwarfs its passengers by more than seven times. The hitchhiking snail is a special sort of parasite, and one that Kano thinks has never been described before. They don't use their hosts as a snack, a home…
Conspiracy theories, TV thrillers and airport novels are full of the idea that the world is secretly run by a hidden society. We have come up with many names for this shadowy cabal of puppet-masters - the Illuminati, the Freemasons, and more. But a better name would be 'parasites'. Every animal and plant is afflicted by parasites. The vast majority are simple, degenerate creatures, small in size and limited in intelligence. They affect our health and development, and even our behaviour and culture. And by pulling the strings of key species, parasites can change the face of entire habitats.In…
It's a scene straight out of a horror film - you look around and see dead bodies everywhere. They haven't just been killed either, they've been hollowed out from the inside-out leaving behind grotesque mummified shells. What would you do if you were confronted with such a macabre scene? Flee? Well, if you were an aphid, you'd probably just feel relieved and go about your business. Aphids, it seems, find security among the corpses of their peers. Aphids, like almost all insects, are the targets of parasitic wasps that implant eggs inside their bodies. On hatching, the wasp grubs use the aphid…
This is the second of eight posts on evolutionary research to celebrate Darwin's bicentennial. What do you get when one species splits into separate lineages? Two species? Think bigger... When new species arise, they can set off evolutionary chain reactions that cause even more new species to spring forth - fresh buds on the tree of life create conditions that encourage more budding on different branches. Biologists have long suspected that these "cascades of speciation" exist  but have struggled to test them. Enter Andrew Forbes from the University of Notre Dame - his team of has found a…
Former US President Jimmy Carter reported Friday that his foundation has documented a drastic decline in cases of Guinea worm disease, a repulsive illness caused by an infection of the parasitic nematode Dracunculus medinensis. The worms feed off nutrients in the body and then emerge through the skin, usually the foot. If this pattern of decline continues as medical health experts predict, Guinea worm disease could be the second disease ever eradicated through medical efforts.
tags: researchblogging.org, Bombus impatiens, Bumblebees, pathogen spillover, epidemiology, pollinating insects, greenhouses Common Eastern Bumblebee, Bombus impatiens. This species is often relied upon to pollinate commercial food crops, such as tomatoes, that are often grown in agricultural greenhouses. Image: Wikipedia Commons [larger view]. A mysterious decline in North American bumblebee populations is apparently the result of "spillover" of pathogen-infected commercial bumblebees, Bombus species, from agricultural greenhouses where tomatoes, peppers and cucumbers are commonly grown…
Today, Zooillogix takes you deep inside Benny's colon to reveal a writhing round worm! NOT FOR PEOPLE WITH WEAK STOMACHS Ladies - Here's a tip. Benny is just as cute on the outside as the inside! Thanks to Craig McClain for sharing?
The parasite Toxoplasma gondii is common in rats, but can only sexually reproduce inside the belly of a feline. The solution? Brainwash the rats into craving the scent of cat urine. Once infected by Toxoplasma gondii, rats who would normally have a phobia of cat urine actually seek it out, increasing their chances of getting eaten and transmitting the parasite into a feline gut. "There are a million examples of parasites manipulating host behavior," said Robert Sapolsky, a Stanford University neuroscientist. Just see the related article "Suicide Grasshoppers Brainwashed by Parasite Worms".…