jonathan s.2 wrote @ October 7, 2009 at 5:15 pm

1. A summary of the pod cast. Carl is going to explain 3 parasitic species. one species of wasps lays it’s eggs inside of a cockroach’s head it leads it down into it nest and lays eggs on the roach and when the eggs hatch they go into the roach and eat it but not the vital organs then when it is grown up it flies away. A neem-a-toad will use an ant to carry around its eggs that look like a berry so a bird will pick it up and they will live in the bird and drop from the bird when it poops. Blood flooks you get them in Africa in the water they will enter your body and the female will attach to the male and the male will feed it and they last years. The hook worm was found in the south in rich soil while it was not in the not rich soil so all the wealthy were sick and slow because of the worm it got from person to person by crawling 4 feet from were some one desecrates so they made out houses 6 feet deep and that stopped the hookworms. The invention of the toilet stopped so many parasitic problems. Hookworms help stop allergies because they have coevolved with the human immune system making the immune system stronger. Hygiene theory states that we are too clean and have ridden ourselves of some parasites that help us. A parasite from cat poop (toxo plasma) can cause problems with a baby in pregnant women like miscarriage, blindness and other things. Toxo wants to be in a cat not anything else so if it ends up in a rat it will control its mind so it likes cats so then the rat will be eaten and toxo is back in the cat. It is a theory that Toxo is the cause for skitsofrenia because as soon as people started keeping cats as pets cases of skitsofrenia increased and can cause you to drive recklessly.

2.what I learned from the pod cast. I leaned that if you got rid of all the parasites in you body you would become very sick because some parasites help us. That parasites are smarter than you might think they are like the neem-a-toad and how it uses an ant to hold the eggs that look like a cherry so birds will pick it up. Hookworms could stop an entire country from farming and that the simple invention of the outhouse stopped the hookworm and the people could go on farming. Asthma is 50% less likely is you have had a hookworm infection. Hookworm and humans have a mutualistic relation in which both benefit. You can buy hookworms to treat allergies. It is a theory that Toxo in theory can control people’s minds and make them like cats it can also make you skitsofrenic and can cause you to drive recklessly.

3.my reactions to the podcast are amazement. I am completely blown away at what parasites can do to other animals and people. I am kind of want to try the hookworm treatment cause of my allergies and asthma. I am I bit creeped out about some of the things parasites can do.

  Dylan M 1 wrote @ October 7, 2009 at 9:40 pm

1) What I basically just listened to was some people, and some experts, talk about whether parasites are bad or good. The examples for bad was how it eats its way out of insects and kills them, how it can control your thoughts, and how it can make you very sick. The examples of good were how it knows parts of the brain and how it can protect you from your own immune system.
2) I learned that parasites cannot only hurt you put they can also cure you of some allergies and dieses. I also learned that parasites are smarter than you think and that they have evolved as we have evolved so they aren’t very primitive. It is also cool how they can control the way you think like how they can make you like cats.
3) I thought it was very interesting. At first I was all depressed on how we had to listen to an hour of parasite talk but it ended up being very interesting. The talk show hosts were also very entertaining and they kept everything upbeat along with the clips and sound effects. The interviews they had were also very interesting. I ended up being something that I enjoyed instead of something that was very annoying.

  kali v wrote @ October 9, 2009 at 4:46 pm

1. Summary: Parasites live in other organisms, and can kill those organisms, too. They depend on other organisms to live, so they aren’t independent. Carl Zimmer argues the point that people think parasites are completely dependent on other organisms, but the way he looks at it, so are people. He thinks that humans are completely dependent because we are dependent on other organisms, bacteria, and can’t even “synthesize some of our own vitamins anymore”. A certain type of wasp stings cockroaches on their stomachs, which paralyzes them, and then stings them again in the head. The cockroach becomes a puppet or zombie in a way. The wasp then drags it by the antennae to a burrow, and lays its eggs on the cockroach’s underside and puts the cockroach in the burrow, so it can’t get out. When the eggs hatch, they grow inside the cockroach, and eat their way out of the cockroach when they are ready, killing the cockroach. Parasites can be helpful and also very horrible to other organisms. Some scientists believe that toxoplasmosis can affect human emotions.

2. I learned many things from this podcast. First of all, Tthere are 200,000 species of parasitic wasps. They like to use caterpillars, spiders, and cockroaches as their hosts. The parasitic nematode lays its eggs on black ants, and then birds eat the red eggs, mistaking the package of parasites for a berry. Then the parasites get out of the bird through the bird’s droppings. Also, blood flukes live in water and wait for humans, and then bite into the human body, and get into the bloodstream. They stay there for about fifty years, and make people feel terrible and sick. Also, I learned that hookworms can move four feet when they are on the ground. They can also stop certain diseases that the immune system tries to destroy the body with, like asthma and allergies. Last, I learned that parasites can affect human behavior, or even cause miscarriage if the parasite gets into the bloodstream of a pregnant woman and it reaches the baby.

3. This podcast was very interesting and made me think about what tiny parasites are capable of. It also made me more aware of what is out there, and how different parasites are from humans. But, the way Carl Zimmer looks at it, humans and parasites are almost the same in the way that they depend on other organisms to survive. It was also very interesting in the way that it made me think of parasites the way Carl Zimmer does and in the way that they are just horrible organisms that can’t live without hurting other organisms. It was really cool to listen and understand all about parasites. Overall, I found this podcast really interesting.

  Andrea L. wrote @ October 12, 2009 at 5:11 pm

1. Karl Zimmer, a parasitologist tries to persuade the hosts that parasites are not degenerate creatures by talking about parasitic wasps with zombie cockroaches and blood flukes and each one’s method of operation. Then, they tell the story of how John D. Rockefeller and his crew discovered the reason for widespread anemia in the South: hookworm. The problem was pretty easily solved once scientists learned that hookworms could only crawl four feet. They encouraged Southerners to build and use outhouses, and once they did, hookworm cases dropped significantly. Next, Japer Lawrence tells his story of how he cured his severe allergies and asthma by infecting himself with hookworm. Finally, Ellen Horn talks about toxoplasma, a parasite that lives in cats. Or rather, prefers to live in cats. When toxo is eaten by rats, however, they manage to switch the rat’s instinctive fear of cats to an attraction to cats (the rat gets eaten by the cat and the toxo is happy). She also brings up new research into the mind controlling effects of toxo in humans.

2.-I learned that hookworms have co-evolved with humans to become more mutualistic: they help fight illnesses like multiple sclerosis and Crome’s.
-As our society has grown more developed, there have been an increasing amount of allergies and asthma. This is partly due to the fact that we separate ourselves too much from bacteria and viruses.
- Parasites can have mental control over their hosts by changing our most primal instincts.

3. I was a bit grossed out by some of the things mentioned on the podcast, obviously. But I also found a lot of what was talked about pretty interesting, like the description of the zombie cockroaches and the mind control used by toxoplasma. I wasn’t scared, but I felt more confident once I knew more about these parasites’ habits.

  Ione B wrote @ October 13, 2009 at 4:27 pm

I was surprised by the podcast. It was much more entertaining then expected, and covered all topics by telling a story, instead of simply spitting out an hour of facts. The podcast covered various parasites, including parasitic wasps, parasitic nematode, bloodflukes, hookworms, and toxoplasmagon. Previously I had no idea these parasites even existed. Scientist Karl Zimmer appeared in the beginning of the podcast to talk about the first three parasites I listed. Overall, Karl defends parasites and accuses humans of being degenerate. (I found this particularly amusing). The podcast then goes on to talk about the outhouse being invented because southerners were getting anemia during hookworms. I was most surprised by the fact that hookworms can crawl a total of four feet from the stool sample the come from. Then Jasper Lawrence came to talk about how hookworms cured his allergies. Mr. Lawrence had such severe allergies that he actually went to Africa to walk in their dung in the hope of giving himself hookworms! I learned that Asthma is 50% less likely in someone who has a hookworm infection. This is because the hookworms convince an overactive immune system to react and slow down, allowing the individual with a hookworm infection some comfort. Lawrence has infected 85 people with hookworm so far, but is baffled by the lack of people interested in his methods. The last topic covered in the podcast was toxoplasmagon. Radiolab’s producer has had personal experiences with this parasite, and has probably been infected multiple times. The most interesting talent of this parasite is the ability to control a rat’s brain to the point where they are sexually attracted to cats. A cat’s stomach is the only place this particular parasite can reproduce. Another interesting fact about this particular parasite is that humans who have been infected by it have 2 to 4 times the likelihood of dying in car accidents. This is a pretty scary fact. Overall, the podcast was entertaining and educational.

  Erin C. wrote @ October 13, 2009 at 5:57 pm

Parasites Podcast

1. This was an hour-long podcast all about parasites. Throughout this podcast there were many speakers who each shared their own experience with parasites. Some of these experiences were good, some bad. An example of a good experience was with Jasper Lawrence. Throughout his whole life he had severe allergies and eventually developed bad asthma. When he brought his two daughters to England with him to visit his aunt, it was then that he heard about the use of tapeworms to get rid of asthma. Once he heard about this he immediately went online and searched about this for hours. After reading he decided he would try infecting himself with tapeworms and ended up going to Africa because no place sold them. After he was infected with tapeworms and it came to allergy season he no longer had any allergies or asthma, it was amazing to him. This podcast also proves that not all parasites are helpful. For instance it talks about blood flukes (related to tape worms) that start out in the water and eventually find their way into a human usually by going into their feet. Once they have done this they slip into a vein and get into the circulatory system. After this is done they then find a mate and the male feeds the female, they will stay like this for years and years. After a while the person infected begins to get sick because of all the eggs being produced.
2. I have learned many things from this podcast. One was that although all parasites are believed to be bad, this isn’t true. There is one instance in which parasites actually help someone. Another thing I learned was that parasites such as parasitic wasps are very interesting creatures. They know how to control cockroaches simply by first paralyzing them and then stinging them in the brain. A third thing was that simply by creating outhouses, the amount of people in the south getting infected by parasites dropped tremendously. By this happening the south eventually rose again because people were no longer as sick. One very interesting thing I learned was that parasites known as toxoplasma can control the way of how some organisms think.
3. Overall, I thought this podcast was very interesting, even thought it was really long. It taught me new things about parasites that I would have never know before. In the future if we are assigned to listen to another podcast similar to this one I will actually look forward to it.

  Callie I. Period 2 wrote @ October 13, 2009 at 8:20 pm

(1) Summarize what you have listened to;
The people at radiolab made this podcast about parasites. They discussed how parasites can affect animals as well as humans.

(2) Summarize or list what you have learned;
I learned that there is a species of parasites called blood flukes that come from Africa. They enter the body through the feet and can stay there with no effect for tens of years. I also learned that there is a species of parasites that affects ants and turns their body into what looks like a large red cherry. I also learned that southern farmers got hookworms because they had nowhere to use the bathroom and the hookworms from the soil on their farms entered their bodies and came back because the worms were able to crawl four feet from where they were and that’s how people got them. So to prevent that, people dug holes six feet deep to use as restrooms because the hookworms died after traveling four feet.
(3) Give me your reaction to the podcast.
I think this podcast was interesting as well as disgusting. I don’t typically have a weak stomach but some of the descriptions being as vivid as they were made me a bit grossed out. I also think that this was all very interesting information because one never really thinks about how parasites affect people and animals all over the world. I also learned that I never want to get hookworms.

  Alexa I (1) wrote @ October 13, 2009 at 9:53 pm

Question 1 :
In this Podcast we listened about different species of Parasite. For example we leraned about Parasitic Wasp , Parasitic Nematod , Blood Flouz , Hook Worm, toxo and Animia. It told what each was and an real life example.
Question 2 :
In this Podcast i learned about different Parasites. I learend that Parasites were animals. The hookworm was the most interseting to me. i thought it was extremly weird that anybody would insert parsite into them by stepping in ohter people’s fecies. The Blood Floux were interesting cause they enterinto humans and then travel in the blood.
Question 3 :
This podcast was interesting and really wierd. The facts were intersting. The man who has hookworm in him was the best part.

  CarolineN.2 wrote @ October 14, 2009 at 7:28 pm

1) The pod cast that we listened to was all about parasites. It had examples of specific parasites that have extraordinary talents (in a way). For example, parasite wasps that attack cockroaches. The people conversing about these parasites found what these parasite wasps do to be “evil”. They perform “brain surgery” (as they referred to it) on the cockroaches and eventually lay their eggs on the cockroach’s stomach so the newly hatched larvae can eat the cockroach. Another example is the hookworm. The hookworm attacks the provider’s intestines and would appear to most people as a harmful organism. But, in some situations, the hookworm can be a benefit to the organism that it is residing in, for example. People with chronic asthma, allergies, and other diseases that attack immune systems negatively could by chance benefit from hookworm. It also went on about how specific parasites can control and affect how people behave which I found to be really interesting. For example, the taxo plasma.

2) This pod cast taught me a lot. When I was listening to the stories about hookworms, I really couldn’t see a plus side to hookworms. And when they had someone describe a different point of view of hookworms, I was really surprised to find out that asthma was 50% more less likely in people who have hookworms and for someone that has chronic asthma, hookworms are a positive. And that one person really went to far measures to acquire hookworms. I also learned that allergies and asthma (along with many other diseases) attack your immune system in a way different than others, they actually make the “attackers” or white blood cells attack nothing. Hookworms can cure this cause, as the people says, hookworms act as a soother almost that calm those attackers down and control things. So, for some people, if a hookworm can live in the body and receive everything it needs, then they can be beneficial to the organism it’s thriving off of. I also learned that parasites can affect people behavior. Also I learned that parasites can also control how organisms believe, for example the taxo plasma. They said that the taxo plasma finds a particular region in the brain that controls emotions and “crosses wires”.

3) I thought that this pod cast was really interesting. It really went into depth about parasites. The entire pod cast seemed to be the people just debating and conversing about their opinions and the facts of parasites, and I found the back and fourth comments to be a little confusing. Also when they were telling stories about specific incidents containing parasites, I was confused when they would almost react it. I also learned that whether or not parasites are bad is determined upon the situation. Parasites can either benefit or harm the organism that it’s residing in. I found the whole section about hookworms to be disturbing. The fact that they could literally crawl up to 4 feet from the disposed feces then infect another organism and eat their organs bothers me. Then, to find out that some people actually benefit from the hookworms, and try to get them really shocks me. And to listen to the drastic measures that, this one man for example, went through to obtain hookworm was surprising. I was also surprised to find out that parasites could affect human behavior. And that parasites can also control how organisms behave. For example, the taxo plasma. It finds a particular region in the brain that controls emotions and it can “cross wires”. I was really interested to learn that there is a connection between taxo plasma and skitsophrenia. And that when cats became domesticated, skitosophrenia came “into the picture” which then grows a theory of a link between the two or that taxo is the thing that is actually guiding human emotions.

  ldavis(2) wrote @ October 14, 2009 at 8:18 pm

1. The WNYC Radiolab podcast covering parasites brought two important points to the table. Multiple stories were told, some that portrayed parasites in a negative light, and some in a positive way. All of the stories make one point clear: the public’s view of parasites has been biased for a very long time.
2. I learned that:
a. During the 1800s, anemia in the South was caused by hookworms in feces.
b. Hookworms can cure asthma and allergies.
c. A certain species of wasp can inject venom into a cockroaches head, turning it into a kind of zombie with no free will.
d. Parasites and humans, in many cases, have a mutualistic relationship.
3. My reaction to the podcast, and specifically the story of the hookworms curing a man’s illnesses, shocked me. Most of my life I’ve suffered from asthma and allergies. I can only hold off the effects of these illnesses with medication. This man found a nearly permanent way to cure them, and I may just look into his hookworm-selling business.

  Whitney H2 wrote @ October 14, 2009 at 8:37 pm

1. In this podcast, we learned that parasites are organisms that invade another organism’s body to reproduce and live. In that, they are only benefiting themselves, and not their host (parasitism). They can be bad, and also be good. They can effect human behavior, (making you lethargic; curing some problems). The discovery of them and the diseases that they caused changed modern sanitation permanently.
2. Listening to this podcast, I learned that parasites aren’t just some brainless organisms; they actually can be very intelligent. The example that helped me learn this was that there is a type of parasite that can sting a cockroach, making it a virtual puppet. Then, they can make it attract a bird and the bird will eat the cockroach and the parasite will be able to feed off of the bird and breed with other parasites inside the bird. Hookworm parasites can come from feces and enter you through your feet, into your veins, into your organs, in your gut, and feed off of you. This can actually calm down your cells, and tell the allergy cells to STOP attacking, and have a 50% chance of decreasing you asthma. For one man in the podcast, these hookworms had completely gotten rid of his allergies.
3. I actually really enjoyed listening to this podcast. I thought it was interesting, helpful, informative, and even funny. The sound effects made it more descriptive, and the people were radio talk show hosts that made it funny and more interesting, so I wanted to keep listening. Learning that people could actually get rid of your allergies with hookworms, (but with too many you can get anemia) was very fascinating. Also, there was success with multiple sclerosis cures.

  colby st (1) wrote @ October 14, 2009 at 11:17 pm

(1) I have listened to people talking about parasites. How parasites are bad and can cause many diseases, and how parasites can sometimes be good and helpful. At the beginning of the pod cast the show had Carl Zimmer on. He was talking about how everything depends on one another to survive and this means parasites are not degenerate. He talked about three different types of parasites, parasitic wasps, parasitic nematode, and blood flukes. Later on in the show they talked about how a man named John D. Rockefeller was trying to get the southern people doing more. He sent scientists/doctors down south only to find out they had anemia from hookworms. Hookworms were being transferred from where they went top the bathroom back into the people. They found hookworms could travel 4 ft before they died. This was how the out house was invented; being 6 ft into the ground the hookworms could not travel out. During the pod cast they also talked about Jasper Lawrence. Jasper Lawrence was a man with severe allergies who read about how hookworms could cure allergies. He tried to buy hookworms but nobody was selling them to him. He was still determined to infect himself with hook worms. This is why he went to Africa and walked around in about 30-40 different “bathroom areas” on a 110 degrees Fahrenheit day. Ever since then he has had no problems with his allergies. Today you can find Jasper selling hookworms using FedEx. The hook worms he uses are from himself too. The last thing they talked about was toxoplasma gondii. This type of parasite lives in birds and cats. When the bird or cat excretes the parasite smaller insects or rodents will eat the waste and end up with the parasite. This parasite travels to the brain and takes control to make the newly infected insect or rodent want to be eaten by the next host, a cat or bird.
(2) What I learned…
• I learned that there are over 200,000 types of parasitic wasps.
• Blood flukes can wait 40 years before causing your body harm.
• Parasitic nematodes can make an ant’s but turn big and red like a cherry.
• Out houses were developed because people from the south had anemia from hookworms.
• Jasper Lawrence sells hook worms using FedEx.
• Toxoplama gondii can kill a baby.
• There was an increase in cats (cat craze) during 1860s-1870.
• At the same time there was a (cat craze) Skitsofrenia rose.
• The hygiene hypothesis said that we are too clean.
• Toxoplama gondii makes rats think the smell of cat pee is arousing.
(3) At first I thought the pod cast was going to be boring but then it end up being interesting. One of the main things that shocked me was that parasites can wait up to about a half a decade, before causing you harm. As I listened to the part about the hygiene hypothesis I was so enlightened about why asthma has been increasing so much in the past decade. In the end I thought the pod cast was educational, full of facts, but at the same time interesting and it kept me wanting to listen.

  AmandaG(2) wrote @ October 18, 2009 at 2:33 pm

1. Throughout the podcast, they discussed parasites, that they are helpful and harmful, it is an interesting topic for researchers, and that they invade a variety of spaces and live in unbelievable places.

2. During the parasite radiolab podcast I have learned many things. First, I learned that parasites can helpful not just harmful. Also, I learned there are different types of species under in the parasite family including blood flukes and hook-worms. Finally, researches have been studying parasites and discovered that hook-worm infections can prevent asthma and allergies.

3. I thought that the parasite radiolab podcast was affective, because I learned many interesting things about parasites.