Yet more totally weird examples of parasites manipulating their hosts
Viruses That Make You Fly, Bacteria That Keep You On the Ground
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Carl Zimmer writes about science regularly for the New York Times and magazines such as Discover, where he is a contributing editor and columnist.
He is the author of seven books, the most recent of which is The Tangled Bank: An Introduction To Evolution. His website is carlzimmer.com and his address is [ blog at carlzimmer dot com ].
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June 23rd, 2009 at 6:16 pm
Some of these cases of parasitic control of complex host behavior should be great model systems for studying how these behaviors are generated by the host nervous system in the first place. It would be especially useful to find a parasite/host interaction like this in Drosophila, w/ all the genetic tools available for that organism.
Anyone know of any parasite-Drosophila interactions that produce interesting behavior?