Parasites

From drying clothes to surrounding the house with wood chips, here are 10 ways to avoid tick bites, which can transmit a host of diseases.

Unlike most barnacles that are happy to simply stick themselves to a rock and filter food from the water, Sacculina and its kin have evolved to be parasitic, and they are horrifyingly good at it.

Is human evolution over? That’s the question Briana Pobiner, an anthropologist at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History, asked an audience at the Future is Here festival.

Instead of through the air or directly by human contact, these pathogens need to hitch a ride for transmission. Vectors are any organisms that carry disease-causing pathogens from host to host.

Many microscopic bugs and bacteria live on our skin and within our various nooks and crannies. Almost anywhere on (or even within) the human body can be home to these enterprising bugs.

Amoebae can kill human cells by eating them alive, biting off chunks of intestinal cells until they die, a new study finds. This is the first time scientists have seen this method of cell killing.

Everyone knows cuckoos are the freeloaders of the animal kingdom, laying their eggs in other birds' nests. But such slackers may not be total parasites.

Unlike some cuckoos, great spotted cuckoos may actually benefit the birds they parasitize, by fending off predators with a noxious secretion.

When in doubt, ask a parasite expert.

Meet a parasite that can create its own mobile nursery for its young, a parasite that is thought to be the inspiration behind the chest-bursting xenomorph in the film Alien.

This fame might make it seem there is just one fungus that can create such a nightmare. But in fact there are many species of them, and zombifying ants is not their only speciality.

The parasite known as the human botfly or Dermatobia hominis goes on a fascinating journey from larvae to adult.

Pesky parasites can tell their own version of our history, including the idea that modern humans intermingled with Neanderthals and that humans may have first put on clothing before leaving Africa.

The hairworm is a long, thread-like parasite that sits bundled up inside the body of its host.

New video has captured the gory act of a tick bite sucking blood. The new video and imagery reveals exactly how ticks puncture the skin and anchor themselves to the surface.

Researchers have dissected the two deep-sea oarfish that washed ashore in southern California this month. So far, they found that one was teeming with worms and the other was about to have babies.

Paul Sikkel and reggae star Amlak Tafari discuss the recent controversy of naming a parasite after Bob Marley.

A mouse parasite known as Toxoplasma gondii causes mice to lose their fear of felines even after the infection is cleared, suggesting it may be acting in a previously unknown way.

Farmer ants can recruit parasites to battle for them, much like medieval cities sometimes kept expensive contingents of mercenary soldiers to ward off invaders, researchers say.