Like a parasite addressing its host, I gave a symposium talk a couple weeks ago at the annual meeting of the American Society of Parasitologists. When I arrived at the meeting, I listened to a number of parasitologists bemoan the lack of interest in parasites among the public. In my talk, I explained why they were wrong.

People are fascinated and obsessed with parasites, and once you’ve captivated their imagination with tales of zombifying wasps and such, you can plunge into some big concepts that apply across biology–concepts that might be hard to get people interested in if you were talking about spliceosomes or metapopulations. In fact, some people may even become parasitologists as a result. (The organizer