No, it's not the sandworm from Dune, but something equally as gnarly, the hookworm. (Image courtesy of Ingram Publishing/Getty Images)

Ah, symbiosis. It’s taking place everywhere, at this very moment. Consider: Trillions of bacteria are milling about in your gut, and they greatly outnumber your gut’s own cells. If your gut were picking tonight’s movie by quorum, the bacteria would win out. (Sorry to say that you’ll be watching Dustin Hoffman in “Outbreak,” once again.)

But what if your gut flora, a lovely name for all that bacteria, becomes unbalanced? Say you’ve been infected by an antibiotic-resistant bacteria like Clostridium Difficile, which infects 250,000 yearly and can cause years long excruciating diarrhea and extreme weight loss. (Thirteen out of every 1,000 people admitted to a hospital with pick up this bug.) Well, there’s a way to rebalance it, and it could involve a donation from your Uncle Fred. Just don’t ask him at the dinner table.

In this episode of Stuff to Blow Your Mind, Robert and I will tell you all about fecal transplants and why they’re promising, but not a good DIY option. We’ll also look at another don’t-try-this-at-home option, helminithic therapy. And just in case you’ve been lulled into complacency by thinking of symbiosis as a purely mutually beneficial relationship, we’ll explore the darker side of parasitism, not to mention a different type of symbiosis, commensalism. Sort of like your barnacle of a roommate, laid up on the sofa watching TV, getting chips between the cracks in the cushions.

As always, you can find the Stuff to Blow Your Mind podcast on iTunes, Zune and the RSS feed. And don’t forget the free HowStuffWorks iPhone App.

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