The English language has many sayings such
as, “Hard nosed” or “Her nose is out of joint” or “She cut off her nose to spite
her face” and so on. Here’s a new one: “He’s got a tick up his nose.” Do you
have one? If yes, you may be part of a very minuscule, elite group of
individuals, one of whom sneezed his out during an airline layover. In this
case, veterinary Epidemiologist Tony Goldberg at the
University of Wisconsin, Madison, had just spent a few weeks in Uganda’s Kibale
National Park studying chimpanzees and how the diseases they carry might make
the jump to humans. The day after returning home, Goldberg pulled a tick out of
his nose, eventually identifying his nostril-travel companion as belonging to
the genus Amblyomma. However, its genetic sequence didn’t match anything
in any known databases. “So it
could be a known species of tick that hasn’t been genetically characterized yet
or a completely new species,” Goldberg said. He reported his analysis in the latest
issue of The American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene. Check
out the link below for a picture of this hitch-hiking tick, which actually
looks rather unattractive to my way of thinking. Oh the joys of epidemiological
travel and research.
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