Introduction

• In 2014, researchers from the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique at Aix–Marseille Université in France dug a fascinating organism out of the Siberian permafrost: a so-called giant virus, about 30,000 years old, which they named Pithovirus sibericum.

Ophiocordyceps is a species of fungus that infects, controls, and kills carpenter ants. The parasitic fungus takes control of the insect's mind, altering its behavior to make the propagation of fungal spores more likely. Mycologists are counting the species of Ophiocordeps, which has ove...

French researchers have created artificial "cocoons" for Zatypota wasps, which lay eggs on the abdomen of A. eximius spiders. When the egg hatches and the wasp larva emerges, it starts feeding on the spider and begins to take control of its body. The insect turns...

The bacteria — which insects disseminate — infect plants such as goldenrods, which have yellow flowers. The infection causes the goldenrods to put out leaf-like extensions instead of their usual blooms.

Researchers have studied the activity of phytoplasma, a type of insect. Phytopla...

1. One case study says the situation of a 53-year-old woman who "was complaining that she was dead, smelled like rotting flesh, and wanted to be taken to a morgue so that she could be with dead people."
2. Another says 65-year-old man belie...