Dr. Armand Kopelman's Journal: Entry 5

I have just successfully performed some emergency brain surgery on Dr. Salamon. Inside his skull was a single parasite, above the frontal lobe of his brain. I suspect it would have caused a mutation in Dr. Salamon had we not removed it. Everyone was quite relieved. Dr. Salamon is now asleep, recovering from the surgery.

I was looking over our collected samples of bacteria from the body, the spores that were released, Salamon’s infected blood, and the parasite I removed from his brain. The DNA of all the samples are the same. This is all very interesting, and though I hate to admit it, I am a bit overcome with all this overload of information. How can a species cause a mutation in one host and create a “nest” in another? why is there one parasite found in the brain while the blood contains many “egg” parasites? Perhaps the parasites in the blood and the parasite in the brain is similar to the stages of some insects: eggs, larva, pupa, adult. I know I am comparing single-celled bacterium to insects, but stranger things have occurred in science. If this comparison is true, Dr. Salamon’s demise is only delayed, not thwarted.

A guard has just walked into the room and informed me that a storm is headed this way and we should get ready to leave. He says his commander would like to speak with me.