WORMS AND MODERN POLITICS

 Worms and Modern Politics: Things that make you go hmmm. Mix a few facts with recent events and throw in a little conspiracy conjecture and we have ourselves a new whopper.

BREAKING NEWS: A tiny roundworm was revived after it was frozen in Siberian permafrost 46,000 years ago when Neanderthals still walked the Earth. [true]

The worm, a previously unknown species of nematode, survived after entering a dormant state known as cryptobiosis, during which the animal doesn't eat and lacks a metabolism. [true]

Robert F. Kennedy Jr. (RFK Jr.) said a parasitic worm, likely from a pork tapeworm, entered his brain and ate part of it. The parasite died, but Kennedy said the experience caused brain fog and memory problems. [true]

Tapeworms and nematodes are both helminths, which is a general term for parasitic worms. RFK Jr. is also a parasitic worm and hangs out with Trump and Musk. [true]

If I were a conspiracy theorist, I would have taken the above and connected the dots to come up with a real whopper. As I don't have the proper credentials to be a conspiracy theorist I will do a handoff to ChatGPT to make up one. With just a brief prompt of a few of the above particulars, this is what they came up with:

FROM CHAT GPT

In the heart of Siberia’s remote permafrost, a scientific expedition unearthed an ancient discovery—something far more ominous than they could have ever anticipated. Buried deep within the frozen soil, perfectly preserved for over 46,000 years, was a nematode unlike any species they had seen before. This microscopic creature had been suspended in time, its life seemingly put on hold by the cold, until the thawing climate of modern times offered it a new lease on life.

The two men who would unknowingly become part of this chilling saga were Robert and Donald. Robert, a biologist with a deep fascination for ancient life forms, had been part of the team that unearthed the nematode. Donald, a veteran field researcher and the expedition’s geologist, had been tasked with cataloging the surrounding soil samples. The two men had worked side by side for years, but nothing could prepare them for what would happen when the nematode was revived.

It all began innocuously enough. Robert and Donald watched in awe as the ancient nematodes were brought back to life in the lab, their tiny bodies moving again, as though time itself had never passed. At first, it was a scientific marvel. The creature was studied and carefully monitored, as scientists sought to learn more about how it survived such an extreme state of suspended animation. But it was only a matter of time before things took a dark turn.

One morning, Robert felt a strange itching sensation crawling under his skin. His mind tried to dismiss it, but by the afternoon, the itching had spread, and the discomfort intensified. Donald, who had always been a skeptic about the dangers of ancient organisms, laughed it off when Robert mentioned his symptoms. That was, until Donald himself began to feel an unsettling pressure inside his abdomen.

The two men visited the camp's doctor, but the results were inconclusive. No known parasites or pathogens could account for their symptoms. However, as the days passed, their condition worsened. They felt strange internal movements, as if something was crawling through their veins, slithering just beneath the surface of their flesh. It wasn’t until the onset of fever and delirium that they realized something was horribly wrong.

By the time the expedition’s biologists made the connection, it was too late: the nematode, having been revived, had found a way to adapt to the human body. It had transferred from the lab’s petri dish into the bloodstream of Robert and Donald. The tiny nematode, a creature evolved for survival in the most extreme conditions, had found a way to thrive inside the human host, its larvae growing exponentially as it adapted to the warmth and complexity of the human anatomy.

With every passing hour, Robert and Donald’s symptoms became more bizarre. Their muscles spasmed involuntarily, their eyes clouded, and their once-steady hands shook with tremors. It was as if the nematodes were rewiring their bodies, taking control of their movements, turning them into unwilling vessels for something far older, far more alien.

As the expedition scrambled to find a solution, the nematodes’ influence began to manifest in darker ways. Robert and Donald could hear strange whispers in their minds, not their own thoughts, but ones carried by the ancient creatures. It was as if the nematodes held memories from the time when they first roamed the earth, and through them, they began to communicate with each other.

The duo's bodies began to change, slowly at first. Their skin paled, their veins darkened, and their senses grew heightened in strange, unnatural ways. The nematodes, once microscopic, grew in size, spreading through the bloodstream until they began to form intricate webs of parasitic life inside their hosts. Robert and Donald had become part of something greater—a colony of ancient, frozen life.

Desperate, the expedition's team began researching ways to reverse the infection, but the nematodes proved to be immune to all modern methods. The only solution they could come up with was experimental: a freezing chamber designed to reintroduce the same conditions that had preserved the nematodes for millennia. But would it be too late? Could they freeze Robert and Donald again, before they were completely overtaken?

As the final moments approached, Robert and Donald shared one last conversation, their voices trembling with both fear and resignation. "If we don't make it," Robert said, his eyes darkened with the influence of the nematodes, "at least we’ll be part of something… ancient. Something no one will ever truly understand."

Donald nodded, a grim smile curling on his lips. "Maybe… maybe that’s our legacy. The last survivors of an era long forgotten."

With that, the freezing process began. The team held their breath as the temperature dropped, praying for a miracle. But deep inside Robert and Donald’s bodies, the nematodes thrived, undeterred by the cold. And as the men were slowly encased in ice, the ancient creatures that had once slumbered in the permafrost now had two new hosts to carry them forward into an uncertain future—one that would see the rise of a species that had not walked the earth for tens of thousands of years.

And the world would never know that the coldest place on earth had birthed the most terrifying creatures of all: the forgotten remnants of the past, alive once more, hidden deep within human flesh.

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This all must be true because I read it on the Internet. Actually, the Siberian worm thawed after 46,000 years is true as is the statement from RFK Jr about his brainworm.

Epilogue. The Siberian expedition was financed by Elon Musk who had the now brain-damaged worm-infested Donald and Robert thawed. He financed Donald to become president of the US and had Robert appointed to the position of United States Secretary of Health and Human Services. While the above is fiction, it would explain much of what has happened over the past several weeks.