Sometimes a blog must serve as a repository of regrets, a place to atone for not including some perfect fact in a book. While working on my book Parasite Rex, I came across many delicious examples of parasites manipulating the behavior of their hosts for their own benefit. After the book came out, I met scientists who enlightened me about other examples which would have been wonderful to include. A few years back,  for example, a Johns Hopkins scientist pointed me to a parasitic wasp that turns cockroaches into zombies.

I’ve recently been wondering about behavior-altering viruses, thanks to an online conversation I had with Ian Lipkin, a virus hunter at Columbia University, about my new book