The Psychology of Parasites

We have learned so much about humans and human behavior by studying the behavior of other animals like us (and unlike us). But I wonder, what can we learn by studying the behavior (and evolutionary traits) of the single-celled life forms, bacteria, and parasitic organisms of which we ourselves are comprised?

(You did know you are a compound life form, right? What you perceive as your body is really just a complex ecosystem sustaining many different and exotic forms of life. Cool, eh?)

So I've recently read Parasite Rex, a book given to me by my dear friend Aosof from the Royal Society. He gave it to me a while ago, after he met Mr. Zimmer (it's his job to do that sort of thing), but I've only just been able to read it. Meeting him must have been some experience! This book is a eukaryote's and prokaryote's eye view of life... and it is AMAZING!

Imagine this... you are a complete "animal," yet you are too small to be see with a human's unaided eye (click the book cover). In other words, a white blood cell could kick your ass. Yet, in your world, you could be drifting along in a ocean (really just a river) and follow a cloud of urine upstream and into the body of some animal where you'd get into the kidneys and then bloodstream where you are now free to completely roam around the body until you find a new place to call home, perhaps the intestines, where you could be assured of a steady supply of food with no competition or threats.

Yeah, there's life like that. Pretty amazing little creature, eh? In his book, Carl describes this and other more exotic life forms that can actually manipulate the behaviors of their hosts! Seriously, it's a script right out of an Alien movie, except it's real life.

Some of these creatures can build hard shells around them (cysts) for when then environment gets too rough... no water, food, wrong temperature, etc. These cysts can survive for many, many years, even through unprotected space travel. Really neat!

Whether human or microscopic creature, we both have the same basic needs... to find food and shelter. So my point is... what lessons can we learn from studying creatures like that and applying their successful strategies to the macro world? We are just now using this knowledge to create better cures for diseases, but are there non-medicinal lessons to be learned as well?