Isn’t science wonderful?

On a website today I learned about “web-manipulating wasps.” These insects supposedly inspired the alien creatures in the classic sci-fi/horror movie “Alien.”

These parasitoid wasps lay their eggs inside their victims, and the offspring from the hatched eggs eventually devour their way out of the host. Some of this species of wasp control the minds of their hosts.

For example, the wasp Hymenoepimecis Argyraphaga (a thin, brown wasp native to Costa Rica) attacks and lays its eggs in the live body of the spider Plesiometa Argyra (a type of garden spider). The hatched larvae then are able to control the spider’s mind — making it spin unusual webs that are especially well-suited to support the cocoons of the HA wasp.

HA, indeed.

Tragically interesting that a spider whose life purpose seems to be capturing and consuming pest insects is instead attacked, controlled and ultimately consumed from the inside out by a real pest of an insect.

What’s eating you from the inside out? What’s crept into your life and is consuming your thoughts, controlling your actions?

Is it hatred or contempt?

It seems to me that so many people are fundamentally controlled by their dislike and disdain and outright hatred of others that they can do nothing else but be slaves to the ones or things they hate.

A man who hates another because of the color of his skin becomes a slave to racism. A woman who hates another because of conflicting political views becomes a slave to an ideology. A child who hates another because he or she looks or acts differently becomes a slave to mockery, hatred and everything unproductive.

Hatred for one person over one issue never stays contained. It grows to become hatred for them on another issue, then hatred for another person, then a group of people, and so on. And it infects others.

It is an airborne cancer that injects into the lives of others who are around us. It often breeds more of the same hatred, like a terrible cancer, or results in a counterattack, a backlash of hatred towards the hater.

One thing is for certain — hatred is a parasite that will consume you from the inside out, controlling your thoughts and actions and ultimately leading to your demise.

Don’t give hatred, contempt or disdain a place in your heart. Determine to love others, instead, and it also will consume you, control you, and overflow from you and positively “infect” others.

News editor Brett Campbell can be reached at 601-265-5307 or brett.campbell@dailyleader.com.