Head lice / louse
The head louse (Pediculus humanus capitis) is an obligate ectoparasite of humans that causes head lice infestation (pediculosis capitis).[1]
Head lice are wingless insects spending their entire lives on the human scalp and feeding exclusively on human blood.[1] Humans are the only known hosts of this specific parasite, while chimpanzees host a closely related species, Pediculus schaeffi. Other species of lice infest most orders of mammals and all orders of birds,[1] as well as other parts of the human body.
Lice differ from other hematophagic ectoparasites such as fleas in spending their entire lifecycle on a host.[2] Head lice cannot fly, and their short, stumpy legs render them incapable of jumping, or even walking efficiently on flat surfaces.[2]
The non-disease-carrying head louse differs from the related disease-carrying body louse (Pediculus humanus humanus) in preferring to attach eggs to scalp hair rather than to clothing. The two subspecies are morphologically almost identical, but do not normally interbreed, although they will do so in laboratory conditions. From genetic studies, they are thought to have diverged as subspecies about 30,000–110,000 years ago, when many humans began to wear a significant amount of clothing.[3][4] A much more distantly related species of hair-clinging louse, the pubic or crab louse (Pthirus pubis), also infests humans. It is visually different from the other two species and is much closer in appearance to the lice which infest other primates.[5] Lice infestation of any part of the body is known as pediculosis.[6]
Head lice (especially in children) have been, and still are, subject to various eradication campaigns. Unlike body lice, head lice are not the vectors of any known diseases. Except for rare secondary infections that result from scratching at bites, head lice are harmless, and they have been regarded by some as essentially a cosmetic rather than a medical problem. Head lice infestations might be beneficial in helping to foster a natural immune response against lice which helps humans in defense against the far more dangerous body louse, which is capable of transmission of dangerous diseases.[7]
East Lansing
East Lansing is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan directly east of Lansing, the state capital. Most of the city is within Ingham County, with the rest in Clinton County. The population was 48,579 at the 2010 census, an increase from 46,420 in 2000. It is best known as the home of Michigan State University.
East Lansing was an important junction of two major Native American groups: the Potawatomi and Fox.[6] By 1850, the Lansing and Howell Plank Road Company was established to connect a toll road to the Detroit and Howell Plank Road, improving travel between Detroit and Lansing, which cut right through what is now East Lansing. The toll road was finished in 1853, and included seven tollhouses between Lansing and Howell.[7]
Michigan State University was founded in 1855 and established in what is now East Lansing in 1857. For the first four decades, the students and faculty lived almost entirely on the college campus. A few commuted from Lansing, and that number increased when a streetcar line was built in the 1890s, but there were few places to live in the then-rural area immediately around the campus.
That started to change in 1887, when professors William J. Beal and Rolla C. Carpenter created Collegeville, along what is now Harrison Road and Center and Beal Streets, north of Michigan Avenue. Few faculty were attracted to the location, and the first residents were “teamsters and laborers”.[8] In 1898, the College Delta subdivision (including what is now Delta Street) had the support of the college itself, which provided utilities, and several professors built homes there (one of which survives today at 243 W. Grand River Ave.).[9] Other subdivisions followed.
At that time, the post office address was “Agricultural College, Michigan.” A school district encompassing the nascent community was created in 1900. In 1907, incorporation as a city was proposed under the name “College Park”; the legislature approved the charter but changed the name to “East Lansing.” The first seven mayors, starting with Clinton D. Smith in 1907 and Warren Babcock in 1908, were professors or employees of the college.