Eating a meal in a restaurant is one of those trivial, everyday activities we take for granted in the developed world. For Canadian aid worker Louisette Pouliot, however, the simple act of grabbing a quick bite at an outdoor eatery in Ouagadougou, the capital of the African nation of Burkina Faso, had profound implications for her life and health.

The parasite that leads to sleeping sickness can be lulled to sleep itself using a newly discovered pathway, according to research published online this week in EMBO reports. Trypanosoma brucei is a parasite that causes sleeping sickness resulting in neurological damage and death.