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The subject we're about to discuss maybe revolting to some, so let's get that out of the way first,

so you have a moment to possibly set your lunch aside.

But you'll want to hear this because once you learn about parasites, you'll find that they are, well, yes, revolting, but they have redeeming qualities despite that.

We're trying to determine and to describe biodiversity, because we're losing biodiversity on our planet daily.

And so one of the things we can do with parasitism is we can look at a few animals, get an

idea of what their parasite loads are, and then we know a lot more about what's happening

in the environment just by looking at the parasites.

From tapeworms to ticks to some fungi, humans co-evolved with parasites.

When we migrated across continents, they came with us.

And although they can cause awful diseases, their presence is also an indication of whether an ecosystem is healthy.

Yet there remain fundamental facts about parasites we still don't understand.

This is big picture science from

the SETI Institute, and I'm Seth Shostak. I'm Molly Bentley. We talk with the biologist who oversees

one of the largest collection of parasites in the world about the most abundant animals on the planet.

Find out how these organisms bond with their hosts, turn some of them into zombies,

...