September 11, 2018 – Have you ever noticed that warning about raw or undercooked seafood at the bottom of restaurant menus? Ever wondered why it’s there? Because fish carry a ton of parasites, and if they aren’t prepared correctly then those parasites can make it into your body. But it turns out, this fishy intersection with the wild world of parasites can teach us a lot about how these moochers help keep ecosystems healthy, and why we should protect them.
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REFERENCES: Parasite Evolution https://www.livescience.com/55483-wei… The World’s Parasites Are Going Extinct. Here’s Why That’s a Bad Thing https://www.smithsonianmag.com/scienc… History of Human Parisitology https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/arti… Parasites in Seattle Sushi http://agris.fao.org/agris-search/sea… Dramatic evolution within human genome may have been caused by malaria parasite http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/0… Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer https://www.amazon.com/Parasite-Rex-B… Interviews and conversations with: Colin J. Carlson (National Socio-Environmental Synthesis Center) Chelsea L. Wood (University of Washington)