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Explanations for why zebras are stripey run a wide gamut: some say camouflage, or that it makes it hard to target individual members of the herd, or even that it's a cooling method. Well, add another one to the list, which at least has some experimentation behind it. More »
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Watch as a wiggly parasite dances about inside the eye of a toad, thus creating a real, stomach-churning Hynotoad. ALL GLORY TO THE HYPNOTOAD! [Arbroath via TDW] More »
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A stickleback is heading for a warm bath. While its peers prefer to swim in lukewarm water at around 16 degrees Celsius, this individual likes it hotter. That's not because of a personal preference – instead, it is being steered by a parasite. A tapeworm has lodged in its guts, and it needs warmer temperatures to grow as large as possible. The stickleback becomes little more than a living car that drives the worm to the heated pools that it prefers. More »
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Scared of sharks? Stay out of the water. Scared of bears? Stay out of the woods. But parasites? They're small enough to be anywhere. They trigger our natural fear of being preyed on, and add the spice of creeping paranoia. More »
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Animals seem to use migration to escape the spread of deadly pathogens...so it's bad news that many animals have stopped migrating. More »
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The Euhaplorchis californiensis is a little parasite who lives in Southern California. And in this movie, released last year by researchers with the USGS, we learn why its lifecycle is the stuff of nightmares. More »
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Check out the latest images and trailer from Parasitic, the movie that's not afraid to let a gooey alien ruin a gorgeous bartender's, um, attributes. It's what schlocky creature features do best...burst out of people. Plus more Panzer 88! More »
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Next time you fight off an infection, you can thank your parasites. Often you get infected or cured not because of your immune system - but because of parasites who live in your body. More »
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Could a Chinese fungus provide a crucial missing link to new cancer treatments? Scientists have struggled for decades with one major drawback of the Cordyceps, a parasitic mushroom — but now they may have cracked the riddle. More »
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Naturalist and modelmaker Andrew Scott creates sculptures of Lovecraftian horrors, alien embryos, and brain-sucking critters so eerily plausible that you half expect to find them on your next space mission — or simply rooting through your garbage. More »
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A Brazilian wasp has evolved a very peculiar mind-control power in order to reproduce: It induces love in a species of caterpillar. The wasp lays its eggs in a baby caterpillar, which grows normally as the eggs grow inside it. Eventually, larvae burst out of the caterpillar's body, and that's when things get weird. The caterpillar covers the larvae with silk, and will protect them quite violently until they are full-grown wasps (you can see that in this picture). In fact, the caterpillar refuses to eat or leave until the wasps hatch. More »
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The intercom in Mr. Haywood's office has the power to turn a corporate shark into a ravening sex-beast at the flick of a button, in The Ultimate Attraction. Scifi is full of devices that can crank up anyone's sex drive to 150 percent, including sex-rays, drugs and alien organisms. Click through for our roundup of the craziest aphrodisiacs in science fiction, but watch out: It's all work-safe, as long as you don't watch some of the NSFW clips. More »
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