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News reports this morning describe how shocked doctors removed a live worm from a woman's brain in a Canberra hospital last year. The woman had previously been admitted to hospital with stomach symptoms, dry cough and night sweats and months later experienced depression and forgetfulness that led to a brain scan. In the case study published in Emerging InfectiDiseases journal, doctors describe removing the live 8cm-long nematode (roundworm) from the brain of the 64-year-old woman who was immunosuppressed. The worm was identified as O. robertsi which is native to Australia, where it lives on carpet pythons. The woman may have...

If you're considering eating raw or undercooked snails, slugs or centipedes — you may want to think again. Some of these delicacies may carry "rat lungworm," a parasite that can infect critters through rodent feces. Here's what you should know about the parasitic roundworm, Angiostrongylus cantonensis, and how it can be avoided. Where is the parasite found? Rodents have the adult form, with sickened rats passing the parasite's larvae in feces, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says online. How are snails, slugs and humans infected?Infections occur in snails and slugs when they consume the parasite's larvae, the agency says, adding that humans...

You've probably been wondering about this for a while: did the Ancient Greeks ever get intestinal worms like we do today? The answer, we can now tell you, is an unequivocal yes. Researchers from the University of Cambridge have examined Ancient Greek human remains from burials on the island of Kea and found evidence of parasites - confirming the writings of Hippocrates 2,500 years ago. Hippocrates, the famous physician and "Father of Western Medicine" who lived from around 460 to 370 BCE, wrote of many different diseases in the Hippocratic Corpus. Medicine was vastly different back then, and the descriptions...

Not only was Richard III one of England’s most despised monarchs, but it now turns out the hunchback king was probably infected with parasitic worms that grew up to a foot in length. Researchers who dug up Richard III’s skeleton underneath a parking lot in Leicester last year now report they discovered numerous roundworm eggs in the soil around his pelvis, where his intestines would have been. They compared that to soil samples taken close to Richard’s skull and surrounding his grave. There were no eggs near the skull and only traces of eggs in the soil near the grave....