Parasitic Amoeba Eats People Alive, Bite By Bite
An amoeba bites E. histolytica, in green, taking a "bite" out of a human red blood cell, in purple. Katherine S. Ralston et al / Nature It used to be thought that the parasite Entamoeba histolytica killed human cells with toxins and only ate them once they were dead--and that during its meals, it would eat cells by engulfing them whole, like other amoebas. But a new study shows that these parasites instead chomp on human cells while they are still alive, taking little bites until the cells die and then moving on. If people were completely rational, we would fear E. histolytica much more than something like sharks, since these tiny amoebae kill as many as 100,000 people every year (and sharks only kill about five to ten people worldwide annually). “This process of nibbling of...