Saturday, September 29, 2007

Brain-Eating Amoebae

Lately I've been listening to "Dead Mongoloid Loser," the basis of which was created by a band who talked about brain-eating apes.

Perhaps the kiddie version of Devo will talk about the brain-eating amoeba:

Killer amoebas living in lakes can enter the body through the nose and attack the brain, where they feed until you die.

Though encounters with the microscopic bug are extraordinarily rare, it is known to have killed six boys and young men in the United States this year; over the decade ending in 2004, the yearly average was 2.3....

This year, there have been three cases in Florida, two in Texas and one in Arizona.

Though infections tend to be found in Southern states, Naegleria lives almost everywhere: in lakes, hot springs, even dirty swimming pools, grazing off algae and bacteria in the sediment.

A person wading through shallow water stirs up the bottom, and if water gets up the person's nose, the amoeba can latch onto the olfactory nerve, which is responsible for conveying smells to the brain.

The amoeba makes its way to the brain, destroying tissue as it goes....


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