What Do Brain Worms like the One RFK, Jr., Had Actually Do? (www.scientificamerican.com)

submitted 1 year ago by FuckyWucky@hexbear.net to c/chapotraphouse@hexbear.net

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i know old news but its interesting still

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[-] PauliExcluded@hexbear.net 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

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?

[-] FuckyWucky@hexbear.net 5 points 1 year ago

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

[-] BountifulEggnog@hexbear.net 3 points 1 year ago

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.