the.com/parasite
nature's freeloader, so good at mooching it forgot how to live alone
means An organism that lives on or inside another, drawing nourishment at the host's expense — or, by extension, a person who lives off others without contributing.
from From Greek 'parasitos,' literally 'beside the grain' (para 'beside' + sitos 'food, grain'). In ancient Greece a parasitos originally meant a respectable dinner guest, even an official who ate at the temple table — but the word slid downhill into 'one who flatters his way to a free meal.' Latin borrowed it as 'parasitus,' the sponging hanger-on of Roman comedy, and only in the 1700s did naturalists draft the word into biology for creatures that mooch off a living host.
- global majority
- Parasites outnumber free-living species on Earth
- mind control
- Some rewire host brains to commit suicide
- body count
- You likely host several right now
- oscar winner
- First non-English film to win Best Picture
plasmodium falciparum — malaria parasite infecting 249 million people in 2022, mostly in africa
trypanosoma brucei — sleeping sickness parasite spread by tsetse flies in sub-saharan africa
ascaris lumbricoides — roundworm infecting 800 million people worldwide, largest human intestinal parasite