some type of adult girl

currentsinbiology:

3 Smart Things About Flesh-Eating Bacteria (Wired)

CDC

1. The bacteria aren’t actually eating your flesh. The various species—including some that cause strep and staph—enter a wound, scrape, or bug bite and unleash a flood of toxic chemicals that kill surrounding tissue cells.

2. At least 650 cases crop up each year in the US—and about a quarter prove fatal. Flesh-eating bacteria have claimed the life of particle physicist Alexandru Marin, a chunk of the right leg of science fiction writer/marine biologist Peter Watts, and some of Slayer guitarist Jeff Hanneman’s right arm.

3. One common flesh-eating bacterium, Streptococcus pyogenes, has yielded a new kind of molecular superglue. This bug makes an ultrasticky protein that helps it invade human cells. But disassembled in the lab, that protein has been used to lock distant molecules together—even at high temperature and in acidic environments.