Wriggling worm found in woman’s brain

And other stories from the stranger side of life

A drawing of a brain
(Image credit: VintageMedStock/Getty Images)

A woman has had an 8cm-long parasitic roundworm removed from her brain, reported The Guardian. The 64-year-old, who has experienced forgetfulness and depression, was admitted to hospital after three weeks of abdominal pain and diarrhoea, followed by a dry cough and night sweats. A scan revealed that a motile helminth - a parasitic roundworm - was living in the right frontal lobe lesion of her brain. “Oh my god, you wouldn’t believe what I just found in this lady’s brain – and it’s alive and wriggling,” the neurosurgeon told a colleague.

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  Chas Newkey-Burden has been part of The Week Digital team for more than a decade and a journalist for 25 years, starting out on the irreverent football weekly 90 Minutes, before moving to lifestyle magazines Loaded and Attitude. He was a columnist for The Big Issue and landed a world exclusive with David Beckham that became the weekly magazine’s bestselling issue. He now writes regularly for The Guardian, The Telegraph, The Independent, Metro, FourFourTwo and the i new site. He is also the author of a number of non-fiction books.