How your cat may be ruining your life.

[Liv]

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Intriguing article in The Atlantic on how cats, carrying a common parasite, infect their owners and thereby manipulate the neuron connections in the brain. Toxoplasma gondii is commonly a concern of pregnant women, but in a healthy adult, this parasite will often lay dormant in the hosts brain as well. It was believed, that the parasite reached a "dead-end", but now, as evolutionary research shows T. gondii like many other parasites, changes the host's brain, and their resulting behavior.

It rewires the cat owner's brain to cause men to become introverted and suspicious (Summy must have a crap load of cats) and makes women "outgoing, trusting, and image-conscious".

Worse yet, schizophrenia patients, commonly test positive for the virus.

Apparently that co-worker of yours who complains that her cats are conspiring against her, and to which everyone else thinks is crazy... isn't. Of course this explains why the Egyptians all had cats. They were ancient astronauts who brought cats to conquer the human race.

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!

[A Person]

If we discovered a 'religion parasite' (Toxoplasma gandhi?) - would you vaccinate your kids against it?

schizophrenia patients, commonly test positive for the virus.

It's a protazoan not a virus (or a fungus as 'House MD' thought)

[Jamy]

Ut oh....well that explains a lot about MY family dynamics. LOL

[Liv]

Oops... not virus... I knew that... Woke up after 13 hours of Benadryl induced sleep and posted that...

No I wouldn't vaccinate them, I don't believe I have the right to make that choice for them.

[A Person]

Really? What about toxoplasmosis? By vaccinating/curing them of toxoplasmosis you may be depriving them of all sorts of experiences as the parasite drives them to behaviours they wouldn't otherwise experience.

I wonder if the mouse, driven to dangerous thrills seeking out cats, has a religious like thrill.

What of the liver fluke infected ant - driven by the parasite to leave the masses and embark on a journey of discovery to the highest peaks (of the grass stem) and there to meditate (until eaten by a cow). If humans did it, we'd call it religion.

The second intermediate host, an ant (Formica fusca in the United States[5]), uses the trail of snail slime as a source of moisture. The ant then swallows a cyst loaded with hundreds of juvenile lancet flukes. The parasites enter the gut and then drift through its body. Most of the cercariae encyst in the haemocoel of the ant and mature into metacercariae, but one moves to the sub-esophageal ganglion (a cluster of nerve cells underneath the esophagus). There, the fluke takes control of the ant's actions by manipulating these nerves.[6] As evening approaches and the air cools, the infected ant is drawn away from other members of the colony and upward to the top of a blade of grass. Once there, it clamps its mandibles onto the top of the blade and stays there until dawn. Afterward, it goes back to its normal activity at the ant colony. If the host ant were to be subjected to the heat of the direct sun, it would die along with the parasite. Night after night, the ant goes back to the top of a blade of grass until a grazing animal comes along and eats the blade, ingesting the ant along with it, thus putting lancet flukes back inside their host.

I would. I would hate to think that my thoughts and actions were a side effect of an evolutionary drive to propagate a parasite, and I would want to protect my kids from it too

[Liv]

I think the mistake is thinking, that we, at any point in our existence, have control over it.

We will always be a species, influenced, by forces greater than our own consciousness. Whether it be gene, parasite or environment.

Even in a lifetime, we're not the same person. I consider the person I was 7, 14, or 21 years ago a complete stranger to me. Even our own bodies work to evolve, or "convert" us from one state to another.

We are, the proverbial Doctor Who regeneration.

[A Person]

I think the mistake is thinking, that we, at any point in our existence, have control over it.

Really? I believe the converse. We are shaped and driven by things out of our control, certainly, but that's no reason not to manage the things we do have control over.

Else why go to a doctor to try to resolve abdominal pain and swelling - when it's just some natural bacteria growing and which you have no control over?

I know many of my desires, cravings and failings come from my selfish genes, trying to propagate themselves and then abandon me as a worn out vehicle. Although I know this to be true, I'm not prepared to accept that role. I'll fight my genes when they tell me another ice cream won't do me any harm (at least I will sometimes) and I'll have a vasectomy so that I can enjoy sex without breeding more children than I want or that the world can support - and I will take full advantage of modern technology to fix, repair or improve things my genes don't consider important.

Fatalism sucks as a philosophy (and as a religion)

[Liv]

I think we are a force within the existence, but never have full control.

Then again, I imagine ultimately, it's to what lengths we go to undermine other forces, that ultimately lead us to our own self-control.

[A Person]

Not having full control is a poor excuse for not exerting the control we do have.

[Liv]

I think it's a thin line sometimes though. We're talking ages of evolution versus maybe a century of scientific research at best.