Well, that was 10 minutes of NOPE... "If you haven't had enough parasite information..." Yeah, I think I've had quite enough, thank you. Now excuse me while I go watch "2 girls 1 cup" and "Blue Waffle" pictures to cleanse my palate...
Well, I'm never going outside again. I knoow of a place where you never get harmed. A maaagical place with maaagical charms. Indoors, indoors, iiindooooors. Take it away penny!
randman This is the least nightmare fueled thing I've seen about parasites. It was pretty tame. You should spend an hour or so with Google on the subject.
Makes me miss watching the show "Monsters Inside Me." Parasites are both terrifying and extremely interesting to me. It's amazing how an amoeba, something so tiny, can take down something like a human, millions of times its size.
Craig Brooks Millions? Try hundreds of trillions. And compare that to a virus which usually clock in at a good million times less massive than an ameoba.
Episode 314?! I was expecting more from you MentalFloss. Why not facts about pi? Why not 3.14 facts about pi. And cut to credits .14th of the way through the last fact.
And people mock the intelligent design types for commenting on videos like this, when here we have a prime example of provocation. Whatever your views are, it's free speech, people.
Heather Richardson While I agree with your overall sentiment... Thaaaaat's not what "free speech" means or how it's implemented. Also, this is the internet, which isn't American, thus no "free speech" law of any kind governs allllll those of different countries watching videos and commenting.
This was actually one of my favorite episodes of mental floss. You guys should do one about bizarre diseases (unless you already have and I'm just a dummy).
Oh my god, I saw the title and I just though "If John is doing this episode I'll just die" None the less, he must have LOVED this topic. Great job Dr Carroll :D
This dude is awesome. The fact about naegleria fowleri, the parasite that infects drinking water, really shocked me! I use a neti-pot all the time for my sinus problems, and I've always been told to use distilled water, or if I have to use tap-water, to boil it first. I knew it was a health thing, but I never really knew the true consequences of not taking care with water. Scary.
That is really cool. I'd like to point out that some of the organisms you mentioned are technically not parasites, but parasitoids (they kill their host). Despite that little discrepancy, this is one of my favourite Mental Floss videos for sure.
Not only did I make it through the entire thing, I did it while eating a meal, which included beef... it was a narrow thing though, the food was significantly less appetizing. It got easier after we got out of the human parasites.
My eyes started twitching and everything... glad I wasn't hungry cuz I don't think my appetite will recover from that vid any time soon. Thanks Dr. Carroll
I've heard a lot of information about bee colony collapse and unexplained disappearance of entire hives and I was wondering if the practice of removing the hives' entire supply of honey and replacing the honey needed to nurture the colony with fructose or sugar water, has generational consequences? Could that practice be the equivalent of generations of humans living on nutritionally deficient diets? Thank for your research and informative channel.
PARASITES!!! I'm absolutely terrified of bugs but I have a strange fascination with parasites and in fact, one of my favorite books (Scott Westerfield's "Peeps") features chapters named after various parasites and gives brief info on them. I think that was the start of my interest in parasites and microbes, immunology, all that fun stuff. Needless to say, I have a slight case of hypochondria (which is not the accurate medical term/diagnosis anymore I know) so I decided against majoring in it.
I used a neti pot for a while (~3 months) because I have really annoying indoor/outdoor allergies that causes me to be congested more days than not. I always boiled the water first and then let it cool before using it.
A minute after finishing, whatever amount people decided to watch, missions of fire were stared across the world! Thanks Mental Floss you made global warming worse with this video!
Guess I'm used to this stuff because didn't bother me at all. Also I've seen those 30ft worms get removed from someone. Its SLOW taking it out because it can break and go back inside you.
Nasal irrigation (neti pots) is actually pretty effective and generally safe when done correctly (you DON'T use tap water). The average person would probably not want to deal with it, but if you have chronic sinus problems, allergies, etc., it can be a really good non-pharmaceutical at-home fix. Admittedly, pouring saline through your nose IS kind of gross/unpleasant, but compared to the daily pain of sinusitis, it's pretty mild. Just don't go pouring unsterilized water into your face and you'll be fine.
remraft I was thinking all these things too. My girlfriend would be a mouth breather practically 50% of her life and constantly be reduced to repeated aggravated sinus infections without the use of her neti pot. The gen population certainly doesn't need them, but they're a very valuable tool to allergy and chronic sinus sufferers.
tiamta The first of the three numbers indicates the "season", so, for example, episode 213 is season 2's episode 13. Where and how they draw the season lines, I know not.
You forgot about the cat shit parasite (It's a totally scientific name, toxoplasma if you want to be anal about it). it starts its lifecycle when the eggs of the female are shat out by the cat, then they try to get eaten by mice, when in mice they start producing hormones so the mouse no longer fears cats in order to be eaten, which cats do and that completes the cycle. What's the bad part? It can also infect humans and it does have an effect on humans (it's correlated with schizofrenia, alzheimers, and suicide, not to mention higher rate of traffic accidents). It's estimated that over half the world's population is infected with this. How do they get in you? Your cat is an asshole and when it walks all over its shit in its shitbox and then walks over your tables, or over your face at night, or when it licks its ass and then your face or hands, or licks utensils. Sweet dreams!
Spliter You don't even have to have a cat. A study in India revealed that a sh!t ton of cat-free people with vegetarian diets have it because of critters on the farms and plantations.
I love parasites, they're so interesting. If you liked this, I'd recommend reading Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer (nonfiction) or Peeps by Scott Westerfeld (fiction, vaguely zombie/vampire-esque, but mostly the emphasis is on parasites).
If this video is your cup of tea, you should try reading the book "Peeps" I don't remember who it's written by, but it basically suggests that if Vampires are real, parasites would be the reason; and has a lot of pretty cool parasite stuff in it, including the last one mentioned in this video.
I wrote a paper about Cymothoa Exigua in my invertebrate zoology class during my first semester of college! They're terrifying and cool. Apparently there is a horror movie about them, too!
Could the frog flatworm, or at least the genes that affect the limb growth, be used in farming animals? I mean does the tapeworm make the frogs inedible, because I could definitely go for some cuisses de grenouille.
KOLN555 Even with more meat, I would be extremely wary to eat an animal filled with parasites that cause such massive mutations. Your comment also had me thinking of this: vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/gravityfalls/images/d/d6/Short17_uh_UH_UHH.png/revision/latest?cb=20140608231347
KOLN555 The reason it makes frogs grow extra legs is because it makes it harder for them to avoid predators. Predators eat the frogs, the flatworms then end up in the predator's digestive track, where they can then mate and lay eggs. So it would probably be a bad idea to eat a frog that had these things in them, unless you want flatworms laying eggs in your intestines.
Parasites are so fascinating yet so disturbing at the same time. On the one hand, they are marvels of evolution since they are adapted so specifically to freeload on their particular host. On the other hand, they can stay away from me forever.
The evolutionary adaptation of parasites is truly amazing. Your just scratched the surface! BTW, Naegleria is even more problematic than you may realize. It lives in lake sediments in parts of this Country. That's why, when swimming in fresh water lakes, you should never disturb the sediment and should always wear nose plugs. Your state may know which lakes are infested and which are not.
Watching this video at 2.59am right before I go to bed was one of the worst decisions I've ever made in my life... Please excuse me while I attempt to drown myself in cartoons in order to cleanse my mind & stop me from dozing off x.x
mumbunguaable Nope. They live in the cow's liver until the adults lay eggs that get pooed out. Then the whole thing starts over. I'm having a horrifying/amusing image of cows trying to climb their barn every night.Then wondering what would come down from on high to eat them.
Once upon a time I thought Serbian Film was the sickest, most disgusting, most nightmare inducing thing I could ever watch. Then you made this video. Bravo.
I feel like I'm one of the very few people who loves learning about parasites... I've been listening to the podcast "This Week in Parasitism" for years now. Now, if you're feeling adventurous, look up videos of botfly larvae removal. You won't be able to eat for a while.
![Lp. Сердце Вселенной #60 РОЖДЕНИЕ ЛОЛОЛОШКИ [Финал] • Майнкрафт](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/YoR0pAV9FVQ/mqdefault.jpg)
Well, that was 10 minutes of NOPE...
"If you haven't had enough parasite information..." Yeah, I think I've had quite enough, thank you. Now excuse me while I go watch "2 girls 1 cup" and "Blue Waffle" pictures to cleanse my palate...
Jandau85 All right, that's it, I'm out of the world.
Some red pancakes would help
Jandau85 I'm so going to regret looking these up again.
Blue waffles are fake...
*****
Then my work here is done...
Well, I'm never going outside again. I knoow of a place where you never get harmed. A maaagical place with maaagical charms. Indoors, indoors, iiindooooors. Take it away penny!
randman you mean the place where bed-bugs, flies and spiders live?
That penny has the most beautiful voice. 😭😭😭😭
+Mikolaimcwhateverman we have guns
randman This is the least nightmare fueled thing I've seen about parasites. It was pretty tame. You should spend an hour or so with Google on the subject.
Nikolaj Lepka don't forget the possibility of moths, cockroaches, ants, and house centipedes.
*gets spagetti*
*watches youtube*
"Hey! Another video! Parasites? Eh, why not?!"
*sees worms*
*looks at spagetti on fork*
"NOPE!"
Makes me miss watching the show "Monsters Inside Me." Parasites are both terrifying and extremely interesting to me. It's amazing how an amoeba, something so tiny, can take down something like a human, millions of times its size.
Craig Brooks Millions? Try hundreds of trillions. And compare that to a virus which usually clock in at a good million times less massive than an ameoba.
I love that show! And untold stories of the er lol
Craig Brooks I used to watch that show a lot! I was a little kid when I saw a lot of it and it kind of freaked me out for a long time.
Episode 314?! I was expecting more from you MentalFloss.
Why not facts about pi?
Why not 3.14 facts about pi. And cut to credits .14th of the way through the last fact.
Every new fact I learn about bedbugs makes me realize how similar they really are to Floridians.
Conclusions?
>Don't swim anywhere
>Don't touch anything
>Don't get bitten by anything
>Don't get a wound
>Don't eat anything
>Don't drink anything
>Don't breathe anything
The fluke goes through a "host" of animals, you say? hehehe, nice pun :)
My whole body started to itch while watching this episode.
Me- "Ahh ill just watch one more vid before sleep."
*click*
-10 minutes later-
"I have made a terrible mistake..."
lol im hyper sensitive to touch right now, I can even feel my body hair
"You made it the whole way? You rock!" and disgusted. Very much disgusted. 😭
The worse thing about this episode is that these are just the parasites that we know about. I'm sure there are plenty worse out there. Oh Yeah :(
isgdre So, let's talk about botflies...
isgdre Oh yeah there are. I highly encourage not googling on it if the stuff mentioned here made you quesy
DuizhangLu Let's not and burn *everything* to get rid of them instead.
I thought the worst part was that John Green wasn't hosting.
"You rock!" - Yes, I do. But I now feel the urge to scratch. A lot...
10:00....yes, I see...*precedes to light everything on fire*...we'll be safe now
one of the more entertaining episodes of mental floss. i love it when Aaron gets super sarcastic
Funny how the Intelligent Design camp doesn't have much to say about the wonderful world of parasites.
Paul Keefer actually, they do. Don't turn this video into a religion flame war. There's no need for that.
Paul Keefer nice b8, m8, I r8 8/8
They probably do but they call parasites demons.
And people mock the intelligent design types for commenting on videos like this, when here we have a prime example of provocation. Whatever your views are, it's free speech, people.
Heather Richardson While I agree with your overall sentiment... Thaaaaat's not what "free speech" means or how it's implemented. Also, this is the internet, which isn't American, thus no "free speech" law of any kind governs allllll those of different countries watching videos and commenting.
Well, I already knew all of that information, but it was a good refresher! I guess I'll just have to head over to Healthcare Triage to watch more!
This guy is awesome at explaining things.. best ever i seen. 11 thumbs up!
Aaron nailed this. I was fascinated, terrified and laughing (sometimes nervously) the entire time.
"You can feel them in your eye!"
NOPE! I'm done. Bye.
This was actually one of my favorite episodes of mental floss. You guys should do one about bizarre diseases (unless you already have and I'm just a dummy).
Oh my god, I saw the title and I just though "If John is doing this episode I'll just die"
None the less, he must have LOVED this topic.
Great job Dr Carroll :D
#01 - welp, that's enough internet for today.
This dude is awesome.
The fact about naegleria fowleri, the parasite that infects drinking water, really shocked me! I use a neti-pot all the time for my sinus problems, and I've always been told to use distilled water, or if I have to use tap-water, to boil it first. I knew it was a health thing, but I never really knew the true consequences of not taking care with water. Scary.
Lovely.
dafthouse indeed
dafthouse Quite.
Wtf
neverAskMeWhy07 how rood
It was just lovely that you shared this stuff with the world.
This truly makes me want to lock myself inside a bubble for the rest of my life. 😶
That was gruesome Aaron. Thanks for those horrifying images.
Neti pots are amazing for cleaning out your nasal cavity when you have a sinus infection. Use bottled or filtered water only!
I am never going out side ever again... Now if you will excuse me, I need to go shower in boiling water....
Rhett and link did this yesterday. Y'ALL GET READY TO PUPATE!!
What a perfect video to watch right before bed..Thanks doc!! :-D
That is really cool. I'd like to point out that some of the organisms you mentioned are technically not parasites, but parasitoids (they kill their host). Despite that little discrepancy, this is one of my favourite Mental Floss videos for sure.
That was terrifyingly fascinating.
Terrifying when humans were mentioned, fascinating when we were not.
Not only did I make it through the entire thing, I did it while eating a meal, which included beef... it was a narrow thing though, the food was significantly less appetizing. It got easier after we got out of the human parasites.
My eyes started twitching and everything... glad I wasn't hungry cuz I don't think my appetite will recover from that vid any time soon. Thanks Dr. Carroll
Very well done, new guy! Good job. Welcome by the way
IN YOUR EYE!
I've heard a lot of information about bee colony collapse and unexplained disappearance of entire hives and I was wondering if the practice of removing the hives' entire supply of honey and replacing the honey needed to nurture the colony with fructose or sugar water, has generational consequences? Could that practice be the equivalent of generations of humans living on nutritionally deficient diets? Thank for your research and informative channel.
After a few minutes I was like "you know, I do not think watching this video will enrich my life in any way" and noped my ass out.
WHYYYYY
Nature is bootiful.
randman your picture fits your comment
Well... I'm never touching, eating, breathing, or looking at anything ever again... this was awesome.
Could you (if you haven't already) make a list show about the origins of some common sayings/expressions?
These are all terrifying, but the most terrifying parasite to me will always be the Ceti Eel from Star Trek II The Wrath of Khan
GOODNESS, I can't believe I handed so much. I feel sick. Thanks Dr. Aaron! You're awesome hahahaha (seriously, though, you're awesome)
PARASITES!!! I'm absolutely terrified of bugs but I have a strange fascination with parasites and in fact, one of my favorite books (Scott Westerfield's "Peeps") features chapters named after various parasites and gives brief info on them. I think that was the start of my interest in parasites and microbes, immunology, all that fun stuff. Needless to say, I have a slight case of hypochondria (which is not the accurate medical term/diagnosis anymore I know) so I decided against majoring in it.
I used a neti pot for a while (~3 months) because I have really annoying indoor/outdoor allergies that causes me to be congested more days than not. I always boiled the water first and then let it cool before using it.
Parasites, parasite, parasyte... the.. maxim? Awesome show
For certain congestion and sinus problems, neti pots can be great. BUT ALWAYS BOIL THE WATER FIRST.
Fact 1: They live in the comment section of UA-cam
A minute after finishing, whatever amount people decided to watch, missions of fire were stared across the world! Thanks Mental Floss you made global warming worse with this video!
Guess I'm used to this stuff because didn't bother me at all. Also I've seen those 30ft worms get removed from someone. Its SLOW taking it out because it can break and go back inside you.
Nasal irrigation (neti pots) is actually pretty effective and generally safe when done correctly (you DON'T use tap water). The average person would probably not want to deal with it, but if you have chronic sinus problems, allergies, etc., it can be a really good non-pharmaceutical at-home fix. Admittedly, pouring saline through your nose IS kind of gross/unpleasant, but compared to the daily pain of sinusitis, it's pretty mild. Just don't go pouring unsterilized water into your face and you'll be fine.
remraft I was thinking all these things too. My girlfriend would be a mouth breather practically 50% of her life and constantly be reduced to repeated aggravated sinus infections without the use of her neti pot. The gen population certainly doesn't need them, but they're a very valuable tool to allergy and chronic sinus sufferers.
What happened to episodes 54-200?
tiamta The first of the three numbers indicates the "season", so, for example, episode 213 is season 2's episode 13. Where and how they draw the season lines, I know not.
thanks.
Do Italians get Guinea worms more than others?
Someone's a punster. :p
hehehe ;p
You forgot about the cat shit parasite (It's a totally scientific name, toxoplasma if you want to be anal about it). it starts its lifecycle when the eggs of the female are shat out by the cat, then they try to get eaten by mice, when in mice they start producing hormones so the mouse no longer fears cats in order to be eaten, which cats do and that completes the cycle.
What's the bad part?
It can also infect humans and it does have an effect on humans (it's correlated with schizofrenia, alzheimers, and suicide, not to mention higher rate of traffic accidents).
It's estimated that over half the world's population is infected with this.
How do they get in you?
Your cat is an asshole and when it walks all over its shit in its shitbox and then walks over your tables, or over your face at night, or when it licks its ass and then your face or hands, or licks utensils.
Sweet dreams!
Spliter You don't even have to have a cat. A study in India revealed that a sh!t ton of cat-free people with vegetarian diets have it because of critters on the farms and plantations.
Spliter And I have 6 cats... Am I going to die?
I’m going to live in space now. Parasites can’t live in space, right? Not another planet, but space.
My favorite was the wasp. It tortures cockroaches and consumes them alive. That's a net service. Is there anywhere I could buy some of these?
The Ichneumon Wasp does a similar thing as the Emerald Wasps but with caterpillars.
It wouldn't be fun being a bug.
I love parasites, they're so interesting. If you liked this, I'd recommend reading Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer (nonfiction) or Peeps by Scott Westerfeld (fiction, vaguely zombie/vampire-esque, but mostly the emphasis is on parasites).
Not only did I make it through, I was eating the whole time. Still surprisingly relaxed...
Frogs with extra legs
the french: * heavy breathing.*
If this video is your cup of tea, you should try reading the book "Peeps"
I don't remember who it's written by, but it basically suggests that if Vampires are real, parasites would be the reason; and has a lot of pretty cool parasite stuff in it, including the last one mentioned in this video.
Now you've seen that Guinea worm and you'll never look at that Rod of Asclepius on your doctor's diploma the same way . . .
I wrote a paper about Cymothoa Exigua in my invertebrate zoology class during my first semester of college! They're terrifying and cool. Apparently there is a horror movie about them, too!
First Good Mythical Morning and now Mental Floss/Healthcare Triage!? Man I'm going to become entomophobic this week.
Well, now I'm going to spend the rest of my life terrified of horseflies.
I want to see this video's view time analytic and see what made people quit the most.
Could the frog flatworm, or at least the genes that affect the limb growth, be used in farming animals? I mean does the tapeworm make the frogs inedible, because I could definitely go for some cuisses de grenouille.
KOLN555 Even with more meat, I would be extremely wary to eat an animal filled with parasites that cause such massive mutations.
Your comment also had me thinking of this: vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/gravityfalls/images/d/d6/Short17_uh_UH_UHH.png/revision/latest?cb=20140608231347
KOLN555 The reason it makes frogs grow extra legs is because it makes it harder for them to avoid predators. Predators eat the frogs, the flatworms then end up in the predator's digestive track, where they can then mate and lay eggs.
So it would probably be a bad idea to eat a frog that had these things in them, unless you want flatworms laying eggs in your intestines.
I saw the eye-crawling worm on "Monsters Inside Me" and the thing making ants climb grass blades on "Animal Planet's, The Most...Extreme".
If I didn't have an unhealthy phobia of germs, bugs,and parasites in general, I certainly do now!
Nice that they ended with parasites that don't infect humans. It went from near-vomit-enducing horror to really interesting and not that creepy.
Anyone know where I can get a plastic bubble to live in?
I'm on a diet and I haven't eaten anything in 7 hours. This video was very helpful to me
Thanks for sharing
Time to go take a bath in UNINFECTED water
Lol I've had 3 years of animal science in high school to not even freak out.
why, why did I watch this? I started twitching and itching half way through
I'm actually surprised at how few of these facts I didn't already know.
This didn't help me, I currently have Pinworms inside of me and I'm starting to think if that is the parasite I have in me...
That was 10 minutes of nightmare fuel....have to go shower this feeling off me now
I'm amazed at how the larva of the Jewel Wasp knows in which order to eat the organs of the cockroach to keep it alive as long as possible.
Come on guys,
How did you skip Toxoplasma and Cordyceps?
They feed on our fear and you didn't pay tribute...
WE'RE DOOMED!!!!
Parasites are so fascinating yet so disturbing at the same time. On the one hand, they are marvels of evolution since they are adapted so specifically to freeload on their particular host. On the other hand, they can stay away from me forever.
The evolutionary adaptation of parasites is truly amazing. Your just scratched the surface! BTW, Naegleria is even more problematic than you may realize. It lives in lake sediments in parts of this Country. That's why, when swimming in fresh water lakes, you should never disturb the sediment and should always wear nose plugs. Your state may know which lakes are infested and which are not.
I rock! BUT I am confused- What's a, "down below"? Where he said the links are...?
Episode 314? You just missed a great opportunity to make a special episode about Pi.
the only video on this channel i haven't finished watching. BLECH
Yep, this was a bad idea, the ones I already knew only drew up bad memories
Mission: Disgust, freak out and horrify everyone who watches this video.
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!
Watching this video at 2.59am right before I go to bed was one of the worst decisions I've ever made in my life... Please excuse me while I attempt to drown myself in cartoons in order to cleanse my mind & stop me from dozing off x.x
I'm... kinda grossed out now.
But the Emerald Wasp is nice enough to hide and slowly kill cockroaches which are the grossest thing ever.
Does the cow then do the same thing the ant did?
mumbunguaable Nope. They live in the cow's liver until the adults lay eggs that get pooed out. Then the whole thing starts over.
I'm having a horrifying/amusing image of cows trying to climb their barn every night.Then wondering what would come down from on high to eat them.
Surprisingly Blank that's what I was thinking a cow on the barn waiting every night
Once upon a time I thought Serbian Film was the sickest, most disgusting, most nightmare inducing thing I could ever watch. Then you made this video. Bravo.
You made it the whole way? You rock!
I think I'm going to be sick.
Christie Nel I'm cringing and shivering all over.
Bana Aassy That's exactly how I felt.
Thank you for the warning, I think I will watch something else, but I wanted to like and comment to show my appreciation for the warning.
I feel like I'm one of the very few people who loves learning about parasites... I've been listening to the podcast "This Week in Parasitism" for years now.
Now, if you're feeling adventurous, look up videos of botfly larvae removal. You won't be able to eat for a while.
I made the great decision of watching this as I had to quickly have breakfast.
I didn't have a lot of breakfast. And I'll regret that soon.