[HN Gopher] The Scientists Fighting for Parasite Conservation
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       The Scientists Fighting for Parasite Conservation
        
       Author : sohkamyung
       Score  : 12 points
       Date   : 2022-05-09 05:40 UTC (1 days ago)
        
 (HTM) web link (www.scientificamerican.com)
 (TXT) w3m dump (www.scientificamerican.com)
        
       | chihuahua wrote:
       | My favorite parasite story is in Episode 404 of the "This
       | American Life" podcast, act 3. It's about a guy who has terrible
       | allergies (to pollen) and fixes it by intentionally infecting
       | himself with hookworms. It somehow calms down his immune system.
       | For a while he sells hookworms to other people. Beautiful story.
       | 
       | It's obviously better if you listen to it, but you can also find
       | it in the transcript:
       | https://www.thisamericanlife.org/404/transcript - search for "act
       | three"
        
         | SemanticStrengh wrote:
         | there are many possible applications to this and hypothetical
         | hidden endosymbionts. A related major topic is phage therapy. I
         | also have read some people eat common stomach worms parasite as
         | a smart way to loose weight. I don't know if they are toxic per
         | se but if not (and evolutionnarily probably not) it would
         | increase the lifespan and healthspan of obese people. However,
         | the most crazy Idea I think about right now and off topic tbh,
         | would be for scientists to reactivate behaviorally the
         | veronasal organ on a human via e.g. epigenetics, which would
         | allow a human to have altered qualias, including enhanced
         | perception to air-transmitted neurotransmitters, also called
         | pheromones. Although pheronomes do already works non negligibly
         | in humans even without the veronasal, despite common belief.
         | https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fnana.2017.0007...
        
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       (page generated 2022-05-10 23:01 UTC)