Did anyone see this last night on BBC4? He swallowed the cysts of 3 tapeworms and they hatched and all grew in his intestine. :o He was fitted with a miniature camera to monitor them. Fascinating stuff but not for the squeamish and the first time a living tapeworm, several feet long, has been seen in a human. He got the cells from an infected bull's faeces in Kenya. He was given a tablet to kill them as the young crawl out of the anus and down the leg to find a new host. No tapeworms in Western advanced countries luckily!

 

Other parasites such as leeches and lice were explained too. He was away when they found some live pubic lice so a woman member of the production team agreed to be infected and monitored. :rolleyes: Really good documentary. Explained how the Toxoplasma parasite alters the mind of rodents so that they change behaviour and lose their fear of cats and go to where they are, instead of avoiding thir scent. They then stand more chance of getting eaten, giving it a new host! :D

Edited February 20, 201411 yr by Common Sense

I find these type of programmes weirdly fascinating, were you aware of the parasite that makes ants commit suicide?

 

The ant breathes in a spore which then grows inside the ant, controls its mind and makes it clamp itself in a death grip on a leaf above the canopy floor, then kills it, grows a massive reproducing spore out of its brain and the process starts all over again. :( Why would any kind of god design this kind of awful existence/process?

I find these type of programmes weirdly fascinating, were you aware of the parasite that makes ants commit suicide?

 

 

Yes! :o