Heres the story of how I volunteered to be infected with 50 parasitic worms (hookworm) for a year as part of a research study. Check out this thread & follow me for more #parasite & marine biology content [t]
#ScienceTwitter
imgs: https://t.co/hH5YsfS0ay https://t.co/kVurE6BbTS

1st some background on the parasites I got. Hookworms are blood-feeding nematodes that live in the intestine of mammals including cats, dogs & humans. ~500 million people are infected with hookworm, mostly in tropical and subtropical areas including the southern USA
Infection with many worms (100+) can cause anemia, which is most problematic in kids, pregnant women, and the elderly. This clinical study was launched to try to develop a vaccine against hookworms to prevent infection
People become infected when baby worms living in the soil penetrate their skin. Baby worms hatch from eggs that infected people poop out. Where plumbing is scarce, poor waste disposal is a common source of heavy infections (100s to 1,000s of worms)
I volunteered to be vaccinated with an experimental hookworm vaccine (I was also paid). After vaccination, the vaccine (or placebo idk) was tested by infecting me with 50 hookworms (Necator americanus) that penetrated my skin from a patch of gauze I wore on my wrist for 1 hour
Within minutes I felt a tingling sensation under the patch. The baby worms were penetrating my skin! The worms sense fatty acids in my skin and release proteolytic enzymes to make it easier to slip between my skin cells and into my blood vessels.

More from Science

Epic thread incoming:

I'm going to answer the question so many people have been asking this week:

WHAT IS PROJECT X???

Here's the definitive thread to tell you - and show you -precisely what Project X is

Grab a drink, sit down with me and let's #TalkLiberation

<3

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"Project X" is actually called "PanQuake".

Pan means "all". Quake is the huge effect our voices can have when our communications are uncensored and when we have access to brand new functionality that *enhances* our social reach, rather than diminishes it

Here's our logo:

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You can follow the fledgling official PanQuake Twitter account here: @pan_quake and see our super cool new website here:
https://t.co/F7wLSeM6aK

You can find our donation page here: https://t.co/VICFnsR0RX

Keep reading this thread to find out why we created it & what it is

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SPOILER ALERT: Much of the content below this point is from my personal slides & speech notes from today's launch event. That stream got totally ruined by (big) tech problems, but I'm happy to report everything is turning out wonderfully


Here are some of our most high profile & dedicated public advocates for PanQuake - many of whom were scheduled to appear at our launch. All of whom stuck around for hours, to do a prerecord of the event, which is being edited, processed & uploaded for you as I write this.

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