The scientist who sniffed out a new species
Tony Goldberg’s greatest discovery started with a sharp pain in the nose.
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
Thank you for signing up to TheWeek. You will receive a verification email shortly.
There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.
Tony Goldberg’s greatest discovery started with a sharp pain in the nose, said Chris Broughton in The Guardian (U.K.). Goldberg, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, had a good idea what was causing the ache, which began just days after he returned from a trip to the Ugandan jungle, where he’d been studying chimpanzees. “Using an angled mirror, I was able to peer up my nose,” he says. “There it was, right where the cartilage meets the bone: the smooth, rounded backside of a fully engorged tick.” Using a pair of lab forceps, the scientist carefully extracted the arachnid. “I needed to avoid killing the creature, in case I caused it to release potentially disease-ridden saliva into my bloodstream.” The bug came out in one piece. “While part of me admired the way the creature had evolved, as if to resist being removed with a fingernail, my initial reaction was that it looked pretty gross.” DNA testing revealed that the tick was a species previously unknown to science that had evolved to hide out in chimps’ nostril cavities. “A biologist can spend a whole career hoping to make such a breakthrough. I feel genuinely grateful to the tick for choosing me as its host.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Continue reading for free
We hope you're enjoying The Week's refreshingly open-minded journalism.
Subscribed to The Week? Register your account with the same email as your subscription.
Sign up to our 10 Things You Need to Know Today newsletter
A free daily digest of the biggest news stories of the day - and the best features from our website
-
Should you fire your financial adviser? 4 signs it's time to say goodbye.
The Explainer Breakups are never fun, but you have to protect your wallet
By Becca Stanek Published
-
The daily gossip: Man arrested in connection with shooting of Tupac Shakur, an OceanGate movie is in the works, and more
Feature The daily gossip: September 29, 2023
By Brendan Morrow Published
-
What to expect from an El Niño winter
The Explainer Things might be different thanks to this well-known weather phenomenon
By Devika Rao Published