Giant African Tree Snails and The Rat Lungworm Angiostrongylus cantonensis. Bad News

 This parasite caught my attention because it is  extremely important in Micronesia, yet  practically unknown to physicians who work in the islands.  

 In Chuuk (formerly known as Truk), Alicata described infection with this severe parasite from eating raw African Giant Snails, as well as eating raw shrimp.  On Guam, a dish known as Shrimp Kelaguen is highly valued at fiestas and parties.  Raw shrimp, Macrobrachium sp., are squeezed into the mix.  This, the Rat Lungworm, is transmitted by the shrimp and the snail as intermediate hosts.   In humans, who are not part of the natural life cycle of the parasite, these worms cause Eosinophyllic Meningitis.  

The Life Cycle.

 

Eosinophyllic Meningintis is a serious disease that is seldom diagnosed because it is difficult to detect.  Physicians working in Chuuk, for example, when I interviewed them in 1987 or 1988, did not know about this worm.  When I mentioned "Angiostrongylus cantonensis" to a physician at CHuuk Hospital who had a bachelor's degree in Parasitology, he thought I was referring to Strongyloides, the whip worm, a common intestinal disease in the islands.  This physician was well trained, and deeply engaged in his work: he took the initiative of personally performing the microscopical observations of fecal samples for Ova and Parasites (O&P); yet he did not know this worm that is well documented in the islands.

 

From Alicata 1991 with carriers.

 

Elmer Noble was a co-author of the textbook for the Parasitology course I was enrolled in, at UCSB, in 1984.  Dr. Noble visited our campus, where I think he previously had taught, and presented a guest lecture.  He warned us that physicians he had met during his travels in Asia were not well trained concerning parasites.  He often diagnosed persons whose parasitic infections had been overlooked in routine hospital exams, for example  in Japan.  So it is not unsurprizing that Angiostrongylus cantonensis is not well known in Micronesia; but this is especially concerning when a book and multiple research papers had been published on this issue by an expert in the field.

From Alicata 1991

References

Alicata, J.E., 1991. The discovery of Angiostrongylus cantonensis as a cause of human eosinophilic meningitis. Parasitology Today, 7(6), pp.151-153.

 

 Alicata, J.E., 1965. Biology and distribution of the rat lungworm, Angiostrongylus cantonensis, and its relationship to eosinophilic meningoencephalitis and other neurological disorders of man and animals. Advances in parasitology, 3, pp.223-248.

 

 Yeung, N.W., Hayes, K.A. and Cowie, R.H., 2013. Effects of washing produce contaminated with the snail and slug hosts of Angiostrongylus cantonensis with three common household solutions. Hawai'i Journal of Medicine & Public Health, 72(6 Suppl 2), p.83.

 

 

Great news! Reports of publically funded research should be freely available to everyone.

As outlined in this article on Slashdot, the current United States Administration has taken another step in improving the lot of mankind.  A breath of fresh air in a time of chaos, when the world has been going wrong.  

Wonderful.

The actual web page linked by the above article is here:

https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/08/25/breakthroughs-for-alldelivering-equitable-access-to-americas-research/

In brief:

All members of the American public should be able to take part in every part of the scientific enterprise—leading, participating in, accessing, and benefitting from taxpayer-funded scientific research. That is, all communities should be able to take part in America’s scientific possibilities.

What I said: on the limits of the human brain

I need to return to this topic, as this post lacks clarity and explanation.

 In about 1984, I had been researching (as in reading) about neuroethology.  In 1980 or 1981 (probably) I returned to UCSB, after a time in Micronesia.  I was inspired.  During a previous year, between my time in the Marshall Islands and Kiribati, I had virtually camped out at the UCSB library, soaking up everything I could about Micronesia.  My travels began with an intention to immerse myself in Underwater Photography.  I had been exposed to much more than I had anticipated.  When I checked in with Immigration at the Majuro airport, I was told I would be allowed a year's visa in the Trust Territory; I had planned for five years.   

It was a wonderful time, never to be revisited, but it all seems a blur.  Eventually, I was accepted to return to UCSB, with the stated intention of pursuing Naval Architecture, with the hope of studying the Outrigger Canoes of Micronesia.  I began in 1981 with an eye to Mechanical Engineering; once I was actually on campus, however, I woke up to realize that I had first come to UCSB in 1964 with a dream of studying Marine Biology.  So I changed my major, immediately, and buried myself in the books.  This experience was a far cry from my earlier two years when the University was just the next step, I think, in a pre-ordained path.  

 During my three or so years at UCSB in the 1980s, I squirreled away credits with intensity and intention, in a broad range of disciplines.  I think I enrolled in 19-22 credits in almost every term, also taking courses in Summer Session.  In required subjects (for Biology studies) I took the more challenging courses, reasoning, as Tom Harding had taught me, that a man's reach should exceed his grasp.  It was my explicit intent to learn to read everything: I was more important, for example, to learn enough math, biochemistry, chemistry, physics, ethnology, linguistics, to grasp the language, to develop the background to proceed further on my own. 

 I held two work-study jobs, for two professors, doing library research.  As was my ilk, I immersed myself in these researches, to the extreme; even though the task was to generate slides for lectures, for these professors, I dug in deep.  

 Two of the subjects of interest at that time were ethnology and neuroethology.  Professor Jim Case had inspired me with his lectures in General Biology (Bio 7?) with his explorations of what we could learn about the brain, non-invasively.  Neuroethology was the study  of the neural circuitry in the context of behaviors.  Professor Tom Harding mentored me about ethnology of the Pacific Islands.

 A textbook, a broad-ranging treatment of Neuroethology, had a chapter about Industrial Psychology.  My interest was piqued when I learned of studies of workers in assembly jobs showing the number of errors increased over time.  An idea was associated with this work: the human brain did not evolve for prefect replication of repetitive tasks.  And, somehow, I realized or read that neither was the human brain evolved for engineering perfect systems; rather, for solving problems and improving on the existing imperfect solutions.

 My epiphany was a realization that humans could not possibly invent a perfect, unbreakable system, no matter what.   The problems posed by the desired objective---say, to design a perfect, unsinkable ship---are beyond our reach.

 

At the same time I was reading Linguistics.  Every Ling textbook starts with a statement that human language is a qualitatively distinct entity from animal communication that comes before it.  Thinking about the limitations of the human brain, I felt this was an insult to my intelligence.  I will not dive deeper; there is more meat on this bone.

Today I saw an article about a single-core computer broke a quantum encryption target. 

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2022/08/sike-once-a-post-quantum-encryption-contender-is-koed-in-nist-smackdown/

 This is just another example: it will never be possible to design a perfect system of encryption.  The attempts to do so will involve a never-ending spiral.