Health
A Malaria Mystery, Partly Solved: What Happens When the Rains End? – The New York Times
A study in Mali suggests that malaria parasites hide out during the dry season by altering the properties of red blood cells.
But during the dry season, the researchers found, the parasites in most red blood cells stopped making the sticky versions of that protein. They slipped away into the spleen to their destruction. But a few clingy survivors hung on, and appeared to slow down their metabolism, like microscopic bears hibernating for the winter.
This had two effects that protected them.
First, by measuring the inflammatory proteins produced by the immune system, Dr. Portugal showed that the reclusive parasites had somehow…
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