The most effortless way a germ could spread is by just waiting to be transmitted passively to the next victim. That’s the strategy practiced by microbes that wait for one host to be eaten by the next host: for instance, salmonella bacteria, which we contract by eating already infected eggs or meat; the worm responsible for trichinosis, which gets from pigs to us by waiting for us to kill the pig and eat it without proper cooking; and the worm causing anisakiasis, with which sushi-loving Japanese and Americans occasionally infect themselves by consuming raw fish. Those parasites pass to a
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