mpkirkland

Comment Threads

• kanitatlan commented on Parasites
  At risk of being rather late to this thread I'd like to introduce my favorite which is a little different. Human endogenous retroviruses For me they beautifully underline just how ubiquitous parasitism is....
• Bellinghman commented on Parasites
  Oh do please read the existing comments before posting your own. It stops you looking stupid when you repeat what our OGH has already mentioned at #22....
• kanitatlan commented on Parasites
  Damn, I have no idea how I missed that. I can't even claim I was starting to speed read at that point....
• Bellinghman commented on Parasites
  grep is your friend™ (And if you're reading web pages in an environment where grep is the easiest way to check if a phrase has already occurred, I'll salute you for being hardcore.)...
• petterwr commented on Parasites
  Joined this thread a bit late, and I'm surprised my favourite parasite hasnt been mentioned yet (except possibly for the slave ant thing). Imagine a virus that infects through wounds in the skin, then finds the nearest neuron and slowly (over months) transport itself to the brain where it begins to modify it. In simpler vertebrates it modifies their behaviour to be more aggresive, while in more intelligent ones (like humans) it also starts a process of dementia which sometimes even make us more likely to bite. At the same time the salivary glands are infected so that when the...