According to this news report (no, it is not from a tabloid) six people have been killed this year by a brain-eating amoeba.

According to the CDC, the amoeba called Naegleria fowleri killed 23 people in the United States, from 1995 to 2004. This year health officials noticed a spike with six cases — three in Florida, two in Texas and one in Arizona. The CDC knows of only several hundred cases worldwide since its discovery in Australia in the 1960s.

Scary, scary stuff.