If you don’t have an immune system, you don’t last long in this parasite-riddled world. Your body receives a steady stream of invaders–viruses, bacteria, and other pathogens–which it has to recognize and fight. In many cases, it’s a brutal battle with an ultimate goal of eradication. In other cases, the immune system simply keeps strangers in check, preventing them from spreading. As many as a third of all humans have cysts in their brains containing a single-celled parasite called Toxoplasma. As long as the parasite stays in its cyst, the immune system lets it be. If Toxoplasma breaks out and starts to multiply, however, the immune system picks off the new cells. And if people lose their immune system–due to HIV infection, for example–Toxoplasma runs rampant and causes devastating brain damage.
