12mo ago

What Do Brain Worms like the One RFK, Jr., Had Actually Do?

www.scientificamerican.com

i know old news but its interesting still

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According to the New York Times, Kennedy has said he also experienced mercury poisoning around the time he had learned of his parasitic infection.
What the fuck is this man doing in his free time?
- He livin'! Probs took the mercury to kill the worm!
mine gives me cool ideas and the courage to speak them.
- Mine will slowly morph me into one big worm-man hybrid and I'll rule over the galaxy with great skill and generosity, but also an iron fist. Everyone will be very well fed and housed but also deep down very angry because people don't like being "controlled" even if they live in a peaceful post-scarcity world. Look, it's worm logic, I've gotta lotta holes up here, ok?
Tl;dr: our boy came in contact with fecal matter from an infected human and has a habit of not washing his hands. I for one am shocked.
- whom amongst us has not gone digging for gold in the nose caves immediately after fingering someone's anus
  ugh I need to shower now
According to the New York Times, Kennedy claimed that the worm that infected him “ate a portion” of his brain. Can tapeworms “eat” brain tissue?
SHARIF: Discussions of eating brains are better left in zombie movies than in legitimate scientific discourse. The parasitic infections that impact the brain do not eat the brain. Now, that doesn’t mean that they cannot damage brain tissue. But that kind of inflammatory language indicates a lack of scientific literacy and is pretty concerning.
Okay, but what does it eat to survive, if not the brain?
- its not supposed to end up in the brain it looks like
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taenia_solium#Life_cycle
  . Gravid proglottids often rupture in the intestine, liberating the oncospheres in faeces. Intact gravid proglottids are shed off in groups of four or five. The free eggs and detached proglottids are spread through the host's defecation
  . It grows in size using nutrients from the surroundings. Its strobila lengthens as new proglottids are formed at the foot of the neck. In 10–12 weeks after initial colonisation, it is an adult worm
- I hate it when libs, the adults in the room, just say "oh you don't understand at all, do you :smuglord:" but don't explain it.
  I have to believe it's because they either don't understand it themselves, or you are more or less right but have some technicality wrong and they know they'd look silly for actually explaining the technicality.
  
  I like talking about worms, much to the disgust and horror to those around me. Sometimes I read the room, but sometimes...

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