New Parasite Can Control Insects Minds

5 Sep, 2005 at 3:28pm ET Article published in Tech

New Scientist is running an article about a recently discovered parasitic worm that can chemically alter the brain of its insect host, making it jump to its death into water where the worm can move on to the next stage in its life.

The parasitic Nematomorph hairworm (Spinochordodes tellinii) develops inside land-dwelling grasshoppers and crickets until the time comes for the worm to transform into an aquatic adult. Once in the water the mature hairworms emerge and swim away to find a mate, leaving their host dead or dying in the water.

And grasshoppers housing the parasitic worm expressed different proteins in their brains than uninfected grasshoppers. Some of these proteins were linked to neurotransmitter activities. Others included those linked to geotactic behaviour – the oriented movement of an organism in response to gravity.

Source: New Scientist

Comments

5 Sep 2005 ~ 3:47pm kanezfan The Borg?
5 Sep 2005 ~ 4:42pm RWB This is actually scary if true....
5 Sep 2005 ~ 6:43pm entropy Holy wow! I'm with RWB. Besides the fact that nature did it on its own, you know the government will be studying these suckers, if they haven't already.

Entropy, Pessimistic Conspiracist
5 Sep 2005 ~ 7:35pm Leonardo It's time for SpyBot for grasshoppers!
5 Sep 2005 ~ 8:47pm FormFactor Yes indeed, very scary.

The conspiracy theorist in me says the military is already experimenting with this phenominon.

But what an evolutionary achievement for an organism to be able to chemically alter the brain of another organism to hijack it and force it to perform actions that will ensure the continuation of its existence.

Straight out of a science fiction novel. The flick "Body Snatchers" comes to mind.
5 Sep 2005 ~ 9:40pm Linc "Snow Crash" by Neil Stephenson - where technology, religion, viruses, and drugs meet. Awesome novel that every true geek on this site would enjoy.
6 Sep 2005 ~ 12:41am MiracleManS ...the next thing you know, we'll all have worms...
6 Sep 2005 ~ 1:13am Thrax Just run HiJackThis on the grasshopper.
6 Sep 2005 ~ 3:50am bothered It's not a new thing. I saw a prog years ago about a parasite that infects snails. It lays its eggs in Birds which then get crapped out onto foliage. Then they get eaten by snails and grow into adults. Next they take over the snails nervous system and make it crawl to a prominant place like a tree leaf and these things move into the snails 'horns' and pulsate, this is an advertisement to all the local bird life and the snail is gobbled up, so it continues. The sight of these snails up in trees with their heads stuck out and horns pulsating was very odd. There are stranger things in life than SiFi.
6 Sep 2005 ~ 8:20am CyrixInstead A grasshoppers brain is very different to a human's brain don't forget. Much less complex, and I'm sure the US has better things to spend it's money on. By that I mean that I reckon it is so stupidly expensive to research & develop this phenomenon in humans, that the defense budget would be much better spent on other research projects. The treasury isn't a bottomless cash pit.

~Cyrix
7 Sep 2005 ~ 12:17am PirateNinja What if a parasite lived within all humans that eventaully caused our brain to initiate teh production of an enzyme that caused our mitchondria to breakdown and cause us to age?!!

...

....

eh.