Imagine it's mid summer, the water is about seventy-five degrees, and you are a Stripped bass. It is early morning, and you are looking for a meal to get you through the long day. You spot a pod of baitfish near the surface, so you go on the attack, devouring the tiny morsels until you have had your fill. After your morning snack you slowly cruze along the floor of the bay, stirring up mud as you gently fan your tail back and forth. Soon, you feel worse and worse: your movements slow down, you become disoriented, and small lesions form on your skin causing great pain. Less than twenty minutes later your energy is sapped, the symptoms started you turn belly up and die.
             Such was the case for tens of thousands of stripped bass and many other species of aquatic life forms in a 4.5 mile stretch of the Pocomock River in eastern Maryland . All of the suffering and dying fish are victims of a microscopic organism called Pfiesteria piscicida- Latin for "fish killer." This nasty one cell fish killer has been blamed for the death of billions of fish in North Carolina, Alabama and Maryland's Eastern Shore. All of this has earned it the name the "cell from hell" . The many unanswered questions about Pfiesteria have left everyone to wounder several things: the health risks to humans, the damage to the local economy, the desimation of the fish population, and most importantly what is to be done about the so called "cell from hell".
             To fully understand the situation one must know how Pfiesteria grows, attacks and eventually kills its victim. Almost nothing is know about where Pfiesteria came from. However, JoAnn Burkholder a botanist from North Carolina State University who was the first to identify Pfesteria, has learned a great deal about what happens next. In its life Pfiesteria goes through twenty-four physical and chemical changes and in the killing stage it is a two tailed single celled organism. Before attacking its prey it lies dorman...