amoeba

The culprit was Naegleria fowleri - commonly known as the brain-eating amoeba - an infection usually contracted through the nose in freshwater and so rare that most doctors never encounter a case in their entire careers.

“The European Parliament is a bit like The Blob,” she said, referring to the 1958 film about a massive amoeba that threatens to destroy the world.

It was decades after decades of trying to contain something as organic as music, like forcing an amoeba to hold a shape.

An Indian teenager is now among a handful of people in the world to survive a rare brain-eating amoeba, partly due to his father coming across a public awareness campaign on social media.

Rather, these events appear to be common across diverse organisms, from single-celled amoebas to complex multicellular animals.