Protista as disease-carriers
Protista live anywhere, provided there is even a little amount of water.
There are marine and freshwater species that live both floating on the water or on the seabed. A small water pond is enough for these micro-organisms to live; they can usually be found even in the thin film of water that covers the soil particles. Finally, there are many parasitic species, some of which transmit serious diseases to man. Here are some of the most important diseases that affect man:
• the sleeping sickness caused by trypanosomes, such as, for instance, the Tripanosoma gambiense, transmitted to man by some species of the tsetse fly
• toxoplasmosis, a disease affecting nearly 50% of the human population; harmless in itself, it becomes dangerous when it affects a pregnant woman since it is transmitted to the child, causing deformities
• malaria, transmitted to man by the anopheles, parasited by the Plasmodium. This disease still causes approximately 3 million victims a year, of whom one million are African children.
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2 July 2014
A hoax? No thank you, I prefer to find out myself!
In Italian, bufala: a hoax, also means a female buffalo...
3 November 2014
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Have you ever leafed through the pages of a book of Guinness World Records? You can find records of all…
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12 October 2020
Crispr-Cas9, the gene factory
Nobel 2020. The biochemists Emmanuelle Charpentier, French, and Jennifer A. Doudna, from the United States, were awarded the most important…
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What are viruses Virus is a Latin word meaning poison. Viruses do not eat, breathe, move or reproduce on their…
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2 July 2014
A hoax? No thank you, I prefer to find out myself!
In Italian, bufala: a hoax, also means a female buffalo...
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3 November 2014
Conan the bacterium
Have you ever leafed through the pages of a book of Guinness World Records? You can find records of all…
From the Multimedia section
Facts
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Bio-luminescence
Many sea animals, including a lot of fish and molluscs that live in the dark in the ocean depths...
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Bread and cheese, wine or beer
Yeast is used to make wine, beer and bread. When mixed with the bread dough...
Down-pouring bacteria
It sounds incredible, but recent researches have found that bacteria can cause some atmospheric phenomena...
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Bacteria as Sherlock Holmes
A drop of blood, a fragment of skin or a hair found on the scene of a crime can supply…
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13 May 2011
Bio-luminescence
Many sea animals, including a lot of fish and molluscs that live in the dark in the ocean depths...
-
Bread and cheese, wine or beer
Yeast is used to make wine, beer and bread. When mixed with the bread dough...
-
Down-pouring bacteria
It sounds incredible, but recent researches have found that bacteria can cause some atmospheric phenomena...
-
Bio-luminescence
Many sea animals, including a lot of fish and molluscs that live in the dark in the ocean depths...