Scientists William C Campbell, Satoshi Ōmura and Tu Youyou have been rewarded for their unglamorous but vital work on parasites that has improved the lives of millions.
Nematodes play an important role in all biological systems.
Shutterstock
Scientists in Japan have discovered a new species of wasp that induces a zombie-like state in spiders in order to manipulate them into protecting the wasp’s own offspring.
This spider doesn’t know it yet, but he’s about to build a new home for that wasp larva on his back.
Keizo Takasuka
There has been mounting excitement in recent years around the potential for improving treatments by giving people medicines at the right time of day. Turns out it works for fish too.
One child dies every minute from Malaria in Africa.
from shutter stock.com
A new drug that stops the malaria parasite in its tracks, and could be delivered in a single dose, has researchers excited about treatment prospects for the disease.
Acanthamoeba castellanii is a very painful parasite to encounter.
A man undergoes “xenodiagnosis” for Chagas disease in the Argentine province of Corrientes. In this procedure, uninfected triatomine bugs feed on the blood of patients. Later examination of these insects may reveal parasites acquired from infected blood.
German Pomar/Reuters
This parasitic infection is endemic in Central and South America, and can lead to serious health complications. Though rare in the US, incidence is starting to increase.
Intestinal worms (or helminths) are multicellular parasites that live inside the gut. When mature, they can generally be seen with the naked eye. In developing countries with poor sanitation, the most…
Giant pandas aren’t dying like they used to. In the early 1980s, starvation accounted for more than nine out of ten deaths. However, over the past three decades a parasitic gut worm has replaced that as…
Spot the difference. You might succeed but bird hosts fail.
piper
Cuckoos are notorious cheats. Instead of building a nest, incubating their eggs and raising their chicks, they lay their eggs in the nests of other birds and leave the task of raising their offspring to…
The bobtail squid and bioluminscent bacteria are just one of hundreds of examples of mutualism.
Klaus Stiefel/Flickr
Reproduction for a female fig wasp can be a nightmarish process. When she is ready to lay her eggs, she leaves the fig in which she was born and became pregnant and searches for another. After she finds…
A parasite wants to live with you, and to do that it needs to convince your body’s immune system to ignore it.
Sebastian Kaulitzki/Shutterstock
When you’re sick, you want the most effective treatment to help get you back on your feet. But what if that involved bugs? Maggots and leeches have been used for decades and are still supplied to hospitals…
Onchocerca volvulus emerging from a blackfly’s antenna.
US Department of Agriculture
Onchocerciasis, or river blindness as it’s more commonly known, is a major public health problem in the wet tropics, and especially in tropical Africa. This eye and skin disease is caused by a filaria…
In sub-Saharan Africa and parts of Latin America, there is a parasitic worm that infects about 25m people, causing serious skin diseases, epilepsy and blindness. Known as Onchocerca volvulus, it can live…
Hey! You got a friend in Taenia solium.
Roberto J. Galindo
Helena Helmby, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine
Most people are fascinated, and probably equally repulsed, by parasites. And it may be something you think you only need to worry about if you go on holiday somewhere exotic. However, increasing globalisation…
For decades, scientists have tried to understand the complex and gruesome relationship between the parasitic emerald wasp Ampulex compressa and its much larger victim, the common household cockroach Periplaneta…