{"id":92906,"date":"2026-05-08T04:38:21","date_gmt":"2026-05-08T04:38:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/these-popular-national-parks-are-teeming-with-brain-eating-amoebas\/"},"modified":"2026-05-08T04:38:21","modified_gmt":"2026-05-08T04:38:21","slug":"these-popular-national-parks-are-teeming-with-brain-eating-amoebas","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/these-popular-national-parks-are-teeming-with-brain-eating-amoebas\/","title":{"rendered":"These Popular National Parks Are Teeming With Brain-Eating Amoebas"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<br \/><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/app\/uploads\/2025\/08\/brain-amoeba-1280x853.jpg\" \/><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Hot spring lovers beware: Recent research shows these popular vacation spots can harbor a deadly species of amoeba that feasts on brains.<\/p>\n<p>Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey and Montana State University studied recreational water samples taken from major national parks in the western United States. They identified widespread levels of <em>Naegleria fowleri<\/em> in three of these parks, including in areas where it had not previously been detected. Though <em>N. fowleri<\/em> only rarely causes human illness, cases could become more common as the climate continues to warm, the researchers warn.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThese findings indicate that\u00a0<em>N. fowleri<\/em>\u00a0is present in thermally impacted areas across the western United States and underscore the use of enhanced monitoring, public awareness, and risk management strategies in thermally influenced recreational waters,\u201d the researchers\u00a0wrote in their paper, published this March in the journal ACS ES&amp;T Water.<\/p>\n<h2>The ubiquitous brain-eating amoeba<\/h2>\n<p><em>N. fowleri<\/em>\u00a0is a\u00a0shapeshifting amoeba that lives in soil and warm freshwater. It normally feeds on bacteria and isn\u2019t dangerous to humans when it\u2019s simply ingested. When the amoeba enters our body through the nose, however, it can migrate to the brain. Once inside, it can literally eat brain cells and spark massive inflammation, leading to a severe infection called primary amebic meningoencephalitis, or PAM.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" class=\"wp-embedded-content\" sandbox=\"allow-scripts\" security=\"restricted\" style=\"position: absolute; clip: rect(1px, 1px, 1px, 1px);\" title=\"\u201cTexas Woman Dies From Brain-Eating Amoeba After Using Tainted RV Water\u201d \u2014 Gizmodo\" src=\"https:\/\/gizmodo.com\/texas-woman-dies-from-brain-eating-amoeba-after-using-tainted-rv-water-2000610429\/embed#?secret=sTIThDfCNw#?secret=f6Kub1i7KV\" data-secret=\"f6Kub1i7KV\" width=\"500\" height=\"282\" frameborder=\"0\" marginwidth=\"0\" marginheight=\"0\" scrolling=\"no\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>The amoeba is widely distributed throughout the world. But the researchers wanted to extensively track its presence across warm recreational water sites at national parks in the Western U.S. Over the span of eight years (2016-2024), they collected and analyzed 185 samples from 40 sites in five national parks: Yellowstone National Park, Grand Teton National Park, Olympic National Park, Newberry National Volcanic Monument, and Lake Mead National Recreation Area.<\/p>\n<p>All told, 34% of samples tested positive for <em>N.<\/em> <em>fowleri<\/em>. All the positive samples came from three parks in particular: Lake Mead, Yellowstone, and Grand Teton. And though the amoeba was found in places where it\u2019s previously been identified, they also found it at some sites for the first time ever. These included Lewis Lake Hot Springs, upper Polecat Hot Spring, Nevada Hot Spring, Boy Scout Hot Spring, Blue Point Hot Spring, and Rogers Hot Spring.<\/p>\n<h2>What to do about <em>N. fowleri<\/em><\/h2>\n<p>PAM is almost universally fatal, but it\u2019s thankfully very rare. Since its discovery, there have only been around 150 cases reported in the U.S. That said, global cases have been increasing, while the distribution of cases in the U.S. has gradually moved north, according to the researchers. And since <em>N. fowleri<\/em> loves warm environments, it\u2019s likely that climate change will allow it to continue expanding its territory, leading to more cases of PAM.<\/p>\n<p>On the positive side, the researchers say their work highlights the value of improved surveillance for <em>N. fowleri<\/em>, and it might even teach us new things about the amoeba itself. In some sites, for instance, both <em>N. fowleri <\/em>and other related but non-infectious species of <em>Naegleria<\/em> were found. That suggests, the researchers say, that <em>N. fowleri <\/em>might occupy the same niches as these species in natural water systems.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBroadening surveillance for <i>N. fowleri<\/i> in the U.S. could help inform the public of the expansive geographic range of this pathogen,\u201d they wrote.<\/p>\n<p>Wherever this amoeba is found, there are simple steps you can take to avoid infection. You should try to limit any water that goes up the nose while visiting warm freshwater sources, for example, such as by pinching your nose shut when jumping in. And you should always use distilled, sterilized, or boiled and cooled tap water for nasal irrigation.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><br \/>\n<br \/><a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Hot spring lovers beware: Recent research shows these popular vacation spots can harbor a deadly species of amoeba that feasts on brains. Scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey and Montana State University studied recreational water samples taken from major national parks in the western United States. They identified widespread levels of Naegleria fowleri in three [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":92907,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_daextam_enable_autolinks":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-92906","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/brain-amoeba-1200x675.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92906","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92906"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92906\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92907"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92906"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92906"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/diyhaven858.wasmer.app\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92906"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}