Brain-eating amoeba death in North Carolina linked to community water feature

In Durham, North Carolina, a teenager's death from a brain-eating amoeba has drawn attention to the invisible dangers that can inhabit the most ordinary of public spaces. Naegleria fowleri, an organism that destroys brain tissue with near-certain lethality, was likely contracted at a community center water feature — a place of recreation, not risk, in the minds of those who visited it. This rare but devastating case has prompted health officials to map infections across the country, asking which warm waters we trust too readily and which safeguards we have yet to build.