What did Jason Collier, Reggie Lewis, and Damien Nash all have in common? While all were professional athletes, they also each suffered from variations of the heart disorder known as “silent heart disease,” a condition frequently diagnosed in young athletes that commonly results in death.

Viruses, like parasites, live off the materials of other organisms. Without a host, a virus can’t reproduce. Similarly, bacteria require their host to behave in a specific way to be passed along to new victims, typically in the form of sneezes, heavy sweating, or diarrhea.

Colony Collapse Disorder, or CCD, began sweeping across the United States in mid-2007 and millions of beehives across the country seemingly disappeared overnight. Studies suggest that the bees failed to return to their hives and presumably died in the wilderness, the reason for their disappearance continued to mystify scientists.

You may have thought bodies rising from the dead and zombies walking the earth were reserved for fantasy and fiction but scientists have discovered cockroaches that become “zombies” when controlled by a very unique wasp. The emerald cockroach wasp can control a cockroach’s central nervous system and command it to walk in controlled paths, rendering […]

Deep in the jungles of Cameroon, there exists a species of ants known as the Stink Ant the insect roams the jungle floor in search of food but often the food fights back. In this case, the food is a fungus, tomentella and the ant inhales spores from the fungus and is immediately asphyxiated.

Crabs (hemigrapus crenulatus) and grasshoppers are two additional species affected by mind-altering parasites; both suffer from “brainwashing” by parasites requiring hosts to propagate themselves.

A situation arose in New York and Vermont this past winter not unlike that of the bees but this time the victims were bats. An alarming number of bats died after having ventured out in the daytime only to be preyed on by birds or frozen to death after not returning to their caves. […]