Parasites, fun!

I meant to post this a long time ago, an email from my mom before I got better, after 3 weeks of living with my sidekick.

dear ben, so glad to hear from you! from my experience at work it can be very difficult to have positive tests for parasites unless of course you actually have a big worm that emerges from a body orifice, ugh! then diagnosis is fairly easy. but looking for small intestinal parasites can be very difficult to actually find them in a stool specimen. if you have 15 liquid bm's a day actually taking a sample to the dr and looking for a parasite is like looking for a needle in a haystack. so i think the best bet is to just take the medicine and see if you feel better. so if you feel better and look better and have an appetite again then the goal is accomplished even if you don't know what you actually had. but the question is if you had a parasite do you have an idea of where you got it from? so you can avoid getting it again?

good luck with the rest of your medicine, love and kisses, mama

Yes, she's great and a very rich sense of humor.

I haven't heard this yet but it's by my favorite podcast other than the 404

http://www.wnyc.org/shows/radiolab/episodes/2009/09/25

One hour talking about parasites! There's 3 parts. If you know Radiolab, you know you'll love it.

In Defense of Cheats

Carl Zimmer plays defense lawyer, trying to exonerate parasites for their wrongs, while Jad and Robert argue in defense of the victims. Our producer Lulu Miller comes in to moderate a lightning round of: "Parasites: are they evil, or are they awesome?" The parasites in question are the zombie wasp, the nematode, and the lovey-dovey blood fluke.

A parasitic wasp and its cockroach prey
Ant after parasitic nematode infection
The blood fluke
Parasite Rex, by Carl Zimmer
Photo: flickr/teejaybee

Sculptors of Monumental Narrative

Dickson Despommier tells us the story of how the insatiable millionaire John D. Rockefeller turned an eye to the untapped market of the American South and ended up eradicating the hookworm (and, in the process, a number of other awful afflictions) with an ingenious contraption. Then Patrick Walters introduces us to Jasper Lawrence, a modern-day entrepreneur whose passion for hookworms stems from lifelong battles with allergies and asthma. But unlike Rockefeller, Jasper sees this parasite as friend, not foe.

Photo: flickr/grumpies
A bit of background on Mr. Rockefeller
1920 educational silent film about hookworm

The Scratch

When executive producer Ellen Horne was expecting a baby, she really had no particular intention of becoming a self-made expert on a parasite named Toxoplasma Gondii. Robert Sapolsky explains to us why Ellen had reason to worry when she was scratched by her cat, and he traces the unlikely path that the parasite might follow, right up to the point that it rewires a rat's brain. Fuller Torrey detailsToxoplasma's potential associations with other human disorders, possibly even schizophrenia.

Electron Micrograph Image of Toxoplasma Gondii