Tuesday, July 8, 2008

More NB Tour with Cranky Baby

Cranky Baby is apparently not as enthusiastic about bugs as I am.
I'll let you in on a little secret: the only reason I was able to place the butterfly on Cranky Baby or get anywhere near it was because it was injured and not long for this world. The woman who took the picture was amazed at my butterfly-wrangling skills until I told her the truth. I have taken to calling myself "The Insect Whisperer".

S.

6 comments:

Denver Refashionista said...

Insect whisperer? I like it.

Charles-A. Rovira said...

Speaking of bugs...

Someone had himself (and nine other colleages) infected? with hookworms.
NYTimes [ http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9800E6DD1138F932A35754C0A96E9C8B63 ]

It seems they confer some kind of allergic immunity by dong things with (or should that be to :-) the immune system.

Since this is related to bugs and the immune system (and MS is an auto-immune disease) I thought of you. :-)

Unknown said...

Oh, Charles, I guess you don't remember the post I did in February called Diet of Worms. I explained the "hygeine hypothesis" and mentioned studies being conducted to find out if these parasites may be helpful for folks with MS. How soon you forget. *sigh* But I'll check out your link, too.

DR,
I kind of like it too...tee hee.

S.

Charles-A. Rovira said...

Of course I don't remember.

But I think this is different than a deliberate infection (or is that an infestation ? :-) by hookwork by this medical researcher.

If its identical, you get double points for predicting a column of mine. (How did you like Paul Otlet? :-)

Unknown said...

Charles,
The studies involve people ingesting the worms....you only need to have a few of them, like 6 or less, for an effect. And the things don't reproduce inside you either, so it's not like you end up with a massive amount of them in you. And a very simple treatment can eliminate them from your system. That's the only way to study the effects of hookworms on MS - deliberate intake of the worms.
Do I get the double points?

I like Paul Otlet very much. I was quite interested in cataloging systems as a kid, how stuff was organized. But it wasn't until I was a teen that I came to understand it. Any type of cataloging method can be broken down and learned, and then the reasons behind the cataloging make sense. Taxonomy, etymology, Dewey decimal system....they all are easy to comprehend if you know the basics of each one.

S.

Nervus Rex said...

Great new name, Shauna!

You've been tagged! Come and get it :)