Special Report: War on Ticks Missing the target Ticks? There's an App for That Ecology vs. epidemiology

Highlands Current Audio Stories · Aug 14, 2026 · 13m

Can humans keep up? A dozen years ago, Holly Ahern's daughter, Kaleigh, then a college student, asked to come home for the weekend. She wasn't feeling well. Kaleigh woke up the next morning so sick she couldn't get out of bed. She felt practically paralyzed on one side of her body. After seeing two dozen specialists, someone suggested a test for Lyme disease. Although Holly Ahern is a microbiologist, she says that Lyme, which is spread through tick bites, never occurred to her. Kayleigh recalled being bitten, but it had been months earlier. "If there was one thing in my whole life I wish I…