The Evolution of Humans and Lice in 13 Reality TV Titles

Humans and our lice are even closer travel companions than Kourtney and Kim when they took New York. The parasites cling to us more tightly than Paris Hilton's new BFF. They've been such cozy acquaintances of ours, in fact, that the story of human evolution is written into their genes. That's what Marina Ascunce and other researchers at the University of Florida found when they sampled lice from around the world and compared their DNA. In the chromosomes of these wingless bloodsuckers, they discovered a window on human culture almost as good as a flip through the TV guide. Fear Factor "Lice" is a four-letter word that can inspire dread in the hearts of kindergarten teachers, moms and dads, and well-coiffed middle schoolers. An infestation of head lice is usually harmless, if horrifying. Ascunce and her coworkers point out, though, that head lice in the United States, Nepal and Ethiopia ...