brain-eating amoebas!

to carry on in the vein of microscopic brain infesters, here’s some clips from a little story about Naegleria (i feel like this should be an x-files episode* or something….):

Killer Amoeba Blamed for Six Deaths

...thanks to the amoeba Naegleria that is often found in fun places to swim. it likes to destroy tissue on its way to your brain. that's where the feast really begins. mm-mm-mm. braaaaiiiinnnnsssssssssssss. wait, is it the zombie apocalypse already? need to prepare pronto!

anyhoo.

read up about Naegleria in the CDC factsheet. it likes to get in through your nose. think of THAT next time you go for a swim in your local freshwater lake or river. <shudder>

and check out these photos from Thomas Buckelew’s Parisitology Images.

i am both fascinated and repulsed. bugs in my brain, ewww!

[*I was later informed that this WAS in an X-Files episode. "Darkness Falls" (1x19) in which Spirit Lake is mentioned as a place where swimmers have been infected by brain-sucking amoeba.]

maybe i'm a little bit psychic...

or maybe it’s just the heat. it’s not luck, ’cause i’m not the lucky type.

but my beau lost his place in his book, didn’t feel like looking for it, so asked me what page he was on.

of course, i had no idea–this was just a lark.

so he tells me the range of pages and without thinking i reply “213″.

he turns there and then acts a little odd.

apparently that WAS the page he was on.

RFID zapping

RFID tags are in pretty much everything you buy nowadays. they collect a lot of data which can be extracted when in range of a RFID reader. basically, the object is scanned throughout the delivery process to a store, inside a store, upon leaving the store, after you take it home, wherever you happen to take it. as long as you have a reading device, you (or anyone else) can access this info and the other data stored in the tag. it’s a tracking & monitoring device of sorts. (similar to how they can track every mile you drive in your car and where you are spending those miles to a very exact degree. i believe the chips/tags for this started to be in every vehicle in the early 1990s, but i could be misinformed. however, the information is stored indefinitely………your life private? ha!)

two simple ways you can disable an RFID tag are by cutting off their antennas or by frying them in a microwave for a bit (that is, if you want to risk those microwaves….they give me a massive headache). but what to do when they’re in your clothes or anything else sensitive to scissors & radiation boxes?

why, make an RFID zapper using a disposable camera! (see also here & the following video uploaded by tmmbach)

MAKE magazine also has lots of little articles & links to DIY RFID projects. (just do a search at their site for "rfid zapper")

get zapping!

parasitic mind control

don’t think you’re immune, ’cause you’re full of them too! every living thing is crawling with them, at least every animal. i suppose it’s only when something upsets that delicate balance called health that we might notice them. or rather, we notice their effects.

i will finish with human parasites in a moment. here are some interesting insect/animal parasite stories:

apparently, there is a type of parasite (“hairworms”) that likes to live off grasshoppers. when it is ready to reproduce, it excretes neurotoxic chemicals that cause the grasshopper to essentially commit suicide by leaping into water. while its host is drowning, the parasite safely swims away to breed in the water. no kidding. read it at national geographic.

there is another parasite who spends part of its youth in ants. however, once it matures enough, it really would rather move to birds. how to solve this problem? easy! control the mind of the ant, causing it to attach itself to the top of a blade of grass, where the ant is more likely to be eaten by a bird. science says it’s the Dicrocoelium dendriticum, a lancet fluke. (the ant section is in the middle of the article, more or less, but you should read all of it anyways.)

three’s the charm, right? so when mice smell cat urine, it normally causes high anxiety and other fear reactions in them, and they avoid those areas. but there is a certain parasite that spends part of its life cycle in a mouse and at a certain point wishes to advance to cats. in order to get to the cats, the parasite causes a mouse to no longer have a reaction to cat urine, thus giving it a better chance of wandering across the path of a hungry kitty. don’t believe me? it’s the Toxoplasma parasite. (see here too)

and you thought your thoughts were yours and yours alone!

now, people can get parasites in their brains too, just like this lady who ate a bad taco in 2001. the worm (at first just an egg) goes from her gut to her bloodstream, then makes it's way through the bloodstream to her brain. everything's fine & dandy until it the grown worm dies, starts decaying, and makes her brain inflamed. that's when her brain finally notices there's a foreign object lodged in it...

And finally, here are some examples of the types of parasites probably enjoying you RIGHT NOW as you sit here reading about them:

A SMALL SAMPLE OF HUMAN PARASITES

• GIARDIA
• Cryptosporidium
• Genital Protozoa = TRICHOMONAS
• Nervous System Protozoa = NAEGLERIA FOWLERI
• Tissue Protozoa = ACANTHAMOEBA, PNEUMOCYSTIS CARINII, TRICHINELLA SPIRALIS
• Blood Parasites = MALARIA, BABESIA SPP.
• Intestinal Nematodes = ASCARIS LUMRICOIDES, E. VERMICULARIS, TRICHURIS TRICHIURA, HOOKWORMS, TRICHOSTRONGYLUS SPP.
• Liver & Lung Trematodes or Flukes = Clonorchis, Opisthorchis, Fasciola, PARAGONIMUS SPP.
• Blood Trematodes or Flukes = SCHISTOSOMES

 do take note that in many of these cases--including the insect/mice stories--the key to becoming infected with the parasite is ingesting the flesh of another animal. (of course if you eat unwashed fruits & veggies or drink from a water source that something has crapped on or in at some point, that won’t help you out either.)

doesn’t it just make you feel all warm & fuzzy?