New Brainworm Just Dropped
Sometimes knowledge is an awful gift. Case in point: In September, researchers published their discovery of a new species of roundworm that can infest our brains—one originating from Australia, of course.
What’s worse, the authors made the find by literally pulling a live, 3-inch-long larval worm from a woman’s brain during surgery in June 2022. The 64-year-old woman may have contracted the infection sometime in 2021, when she first began to experience pneumonia and other illnesses that didn’t respond to treatment. The team eventually identified the brain invader as a member of Ophidascaris robertsi, a roundworm that’s normally a parasite of carpet pythons, snakes found throughout Australia.
Brainworm infections are rare, but it’s likely that there are still other unknown wriggly species out there perfectly capable of lodging themselves inside our noggins under the right conditions. Joy.
