Recipe for Tick Soup
Recipe for Tick
Soup:
Just Add Roundworms or
Fungi |
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Does just thinking about
finding a tick on you gross you out? |
If so, steer clear of Dolores Hill and Patricia
Allen's laboratory in Beltsville, Maryland. There, the two scientists keep -
yes, keep! - hundreds of black-legged deer ticks. They store them inside tiny
glass vials and plastic-foam containers. Makes your skin crawl just to think
about it!
This creepy collection helps
Hill and Allen test new, natural weapons against the litttle blood-suckers.
Some ticks, such as the deer tick, pose a major health threat. Their bites can
infect people with
Lyme
disease. In 1996, more than 16,000 cases were reported.
But now it could be payback time--time for some
Lyme-aid. |
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Hill, a
parasitologist
(PAIR-ih-si-TOL-ih-jist) is plotting revenge in the form of a spray that's
alive with a deadly ingredient: hundreds of millions of tiny roundworms called
nematodes.
When sprayed onto fallen leaves or soil, the
nematodes slither about in search of a nearby tick. What happens next isn't
pretty, says Hill, at ARS' Parasite Biology and Epidemiology Laboratory in
Beltsville.
The worms wiggle into the tick's mouth, pores
and other body openings. One type of nematode actually chews into the tick's
body, using a single, sharp tooth like a mini-pickaxe.
Hill has watched the ticks fight the
nematodes under a microscope. "They bat away at the nematodes that are trying
to get into them," she says.
But resistance is futile, as the Borg on Star
Trek often say. Once infected, a tick usually
dies within about 24 hours. That's because the nematodes unleash bacterial
helpers from their stomachs. The bacteria release chemicals that liquefy the
tick's innards into a soup that the nematodes feed on. Yum!
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Still not gross enough?
Check out Pat Allen's research. She's testing a different approach, infecting
ticks with spores of fungi like
Metarhizium anisopliae and Gliocladium
roseum.
As
spores, these fungi ooze enzyme chemicals that eat away the tick's outer
covering, or cuticle. The fungi then move into its body and feed and grow. It's
another grisly death, but don't worry, the fungi don't infect people--just
ticks, which are
arachnids, and certain insects, like
termites.
Allen is drawing on her
expertise as a chemist to mix the fungi into a formula
that can be sprayed on hiking trails and bike paths. The idea is to take out the ticks before they latch onto people.
Ditto for Dolores Hill. She's testing an
experimental nematode spray for use in areas like backyards, where people may
get bitten by ticks infected with Lyme disease. |
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