This is disturbing news. What if eating undercooked meat, gardening, or having a cat could give you an infection which stayed with you for life, nested in cysts in your brain? Worse, those cysts somehow affected your personality, possibly putting you at increased risk of suicide, schizophrenia, or car accident? And here’s the stop-you-in-your-tracks point: up to one third of humanity may harbor this protozoan. That is one very successful parasite.
Infection rates are frighteningly high: as much as 10-20% of the population in the US, 30-40% of Czechs, and 55% in France.
Sounds like a plot for a bad sci-fi but we know that Toxoplasma gondii makes small mammals take life threatening risks – an infected rat finds cat-urine “attractive” and runs about more, being fearless, but getting eaten: good for the parasite, not so good for the rat. Our brains may be larger but they are made with much the same building blocks and tools. Rabies is known to stir larger mammals into a rage, and there are “a truckload” of examples from the insect and fish world of parasitic mind control. Hmmm.
Toxoplasmosis is thought to be a nasty parasite that affects pregnant women and immune-compromised people, but evidence of an insidious nature is accruing. Jaroslav Flegr, an evolutionary biologist from Prague, has a theory that this protozoan might be rewiring our brains.
Flegr has been ignored or years, but other researchers are now getting results that support his theory. Studies show that mental illness is 2-3 times as common in people who have the parasite compared to people in the same region who don’t. It could be that schizophrenia runs in families because of a genetic predisposition to a weaker immune response to parasites.
Now that I ponder the unpleasant implications, it seems inevitable that evolution could toss up a parasite-host relationship which shifts human behavior. If Toxo isn’t doing it, sooner or later something else will. (Another reason we ought throw more money at medical research, rather than at bat-killing windmills.)
Those who test positive for the latent infection have significantly delayed reaction times and here’s an especially weird effect, infected men are more likely to be introverted and suspicious and to disregard rules, but infected women are the opposite: more trusting, outgoing and obedient.
‘Compared with uninfected people of the same sex, infected men were more likely to wear rumpled old clothes; infected women tended to be more meticulously attired, many showing up for the study in expensive, designer-brand clothing. Infected men tended to have fewer friends, while infected women tended to have more. And when it came to downing the mystery fluid, reports Flegr, “the infected males were much more hesitant than uninfected men. They wanted to know why they had to do it. Would it harm them?” In contrast, the infected women were the most trusting of all subjects. “They just did what they were told,” he says.’
‘Why men and women reacted so differently to the parasite still mystified him. After consulting the psychological literature, he started to suspect that heightened anxiety might be the common denominator underlying their responses. When under emotional strain, he read, women seek solace through social bonding and nurturing. In the lingo of psychologists, they’re inclined to “tend and befriend.” Anxious men, on the other hand, typically respond by withdrawing and becoming hostile or antisocial. Perhaps he was looking at flip sides of the same coin.’
Because reaction times were slowed he looked at car accident statistics and found that people who tested positive for Toxoplasmosis were 2.5 times more likely to have a car accident. Turkish studies showed similar results.
To put this in perspective Flegr says he cannot say who is infected and who is not by doing a personality test. He needs at least 100 people to find a statistically meaningful disparity. (Only 100 thinks Jo?)
“The vast majority of people will have no idea they’re infected.” It may be that the parasites most detrimental effects occur in a smaller genetically susceptible part of the population. One quarter of a group suffering from schizophrenia showed shrinkage of their cerebral cortex in MRI scans, and these were the same people who tested positive for Toxo. So most schizophrenia is caused by something else, but some cases appear to be caused by the parasite.
Joanne Webster, a parasitologist at Imperial College London:
‘I don’t want to cause any panic,” she tells me. “In the vast majority of people, there will be no ill effects, and those who are affected will mostly demonstrate subtle shifts of behavior. But in a small number of cases, [Toxo infection] may be linked to schizophrenia and other disturbances associated with altered dopamine levels—for example, obsessive-compulsive disorder, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, and mood disorders. The rat may live two or three years, while humans can be infected for many decades, which is why we may be seeing these severe side effects in people. We should be cautious of dismissing such a prevalent parasite.’
Flegr has the infection himself, and this was part of what got him interested in studying the area. He noticed that he seemed unusually happy to take risks that others around him did not, getting honked at while crossing roads, being calm when gunfire broke out in the strife torn region.
‘He also made no effort to hide his scorn for the Communists who ruled Czechoslovakia for most of his early adulthood. “It was very risky to openly speak your mind at that time,” he says. “I was lucky I wasn’t imprisoned.’
So an odd side effect, a potential benefit in a weird way, is that a large slab of the population might be less afraid to speak up against tyranny. Common Toxo infections might make at least males in the population more likely to rebel.
The bottom line
For meat eaters: if you like it rare, better make sure that meat was frozen before you cook it; otherwise, learn to like it well done (freezing and cooking both kill the parasite). For gardeners: wear gloves. For cat owners, change that kitty litter daily, wash your hands. (Cats don’t post that great a threat. Indoor cats don’t have it, and outdoor cats are only infectious for the first three weeks after they catch it, not to mention that there are plenty of studies showing benefits from pet ownership.)
Do read the full (much longer and well written article) in a The Atlantic. Gripping, provocative stuff — an example of a real problem we ought be dealing with instead of all the faked ones. There is no treatment for Toxo, no way to remove those cysts, not yet.
H/t to Tim Blair who found this report in, and called it SCHIZOKITTIES.
Just one more reason to be a dog owner …
30
Just come back from a walk.
Was passed by a guy on a skateboard who was being pulled along the boardwalk by his happy fluffy well groomed dog.
You don’t see cats doing this.
20
It does make me wonder what wonderful and useful things Science might have found if we had not been wasting so much money and effort on Climate “Science”. Just how did our system find itself led down such a blind alley?
10
This could explain a lot about Keating and Rudd.
Both of them have a “cat’s bum” expression when upset.
00
As an ex Environmental Health Officer I can tell you the dangers of consuming undercooked meats has been well understood for a long time.
The current fascination with cooking shows is extremely concerning – apparently “rare” means cooking to no more than 55 degrees C as I heard on MKR the other night. It used to be an offence to serve food that had been held at less than 60 degrees C – that being the minimum temperature necessary to kill pathogens.
Whilst cooking and serving in a short time frame reduces the time for pathogens to multiply to an infective dose number this does not apply to parasites where one cyst infect – the only defence is ti thoroughly cook the meat.
There is a potential for more episodes of parasite infection as our food safety survelience systems appear to be underfunded BUT also being undermined by non qualified experts promoting less than thorough cooking of meats.
01
Sorry Jo… I didn’t see where to send this other than in comments.
Please change “toxoplasma gondii” to Toxoplasma gondii
cheers
00
Sorry to be the formatting police but I got a bit confused with the indented quotes as to what is a quote and what is comment. Some quotes open and don’t close- that sort of thing.
As to an actual comment. It is not surprising that we have parasites that have evolved to influence behaviour in specific ways. Flegr is possibly overstating the scientific scepticism – I’d suspect that scientific elitism (he is from a scientific backblock and was an active scientist during the communist period) is at play with why he was ignored.
The main reason that no one is really surprised by the proposed role of this parasite in influencing behaviour is that it has been shown to occur in many taxa (including experimental studies) with a variety of parasites in some very unusual ways (and in many ways). The surprise I think is that it is happening right under our noses (so to speak) with hints that it is happening at a high rate.
Just to add a thought of my own – most organisms we harbour are symbiotic or neutral with respect to their actions. Many behaviour affecting microbes are symbionts in other species. I don’t see anything in the literature that refutes the notion that T. gondii does not have a net positive action. No one has looked for links with behaviours that are positive for humans.
00
Gee Aye, I agree that it doesn’t seem surprising that parasites could affect our behaviour. There is no biological reason why we would be immune to the chemical or genetic effects, though I imagine a lot of people might hope they could “rise above” those reckless impulses when a rat might not (and I hope that’s true).
Thanks for the formatting points. I’ve edited to make it clearer what is a quote and what is not. I’m trying out a new format for quotes. I’m not there yet.
Jo
00
As individuals we might be helpless to resist the effects of an organism (parasite or not, eukaryote or prokaryote or something in between) but it is more likely our evolved abilities as a communal species, not our individual abilities, that are most effective at compensating and masking the negative aspects of such interactions.
Of course the other species’ are potentially evolving to take advantage of this situation.
00
“As individuals we might be helpless to resist the effects of an organism (parasite or not, ”
I find it very hard to resist the effects of orgasm.
00
Hey Kinky, I take it was not a single cell orgasm???
00
Correct Scaper – required two cells.
🙂
00
I am sure that these feelings come and go
00
Despite being a male I have become very obedient to my cat.
01
Keith, repeat after me.
Dogs are good. Cats are evil.
10
And cats taste just like chicken.
01
Béarnaise sauce?
Tony.
00
Only young cats taste like chicken. On the practical side – am I to feed my girlfriend a steak tartare, give her a cat and a flower in a pot to make her trusting and obedient? Perhaps worth trying, nothing else seems to work.
00
Cats were once worshipped by humans as Gods. They have never forgotten this.
00
I might just leave this one and Stand Mute.
And watch.
00
It is well known that the ingestion of fluoride lowers immune efficiency. A daily dose of fluoride therefore must raise “Toxoplasma gondii” infection rates.
International Anti-Fluoridation Database
00
It’s tempting to blame some of the online insanity that is becoming more and more common on the Internet to a plague of schizokitties, but I’m afraid it’s probably more complicated than that.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWdz_pWYNzY&feature=related
00
So, natural selection favours genetic traits in parasites which can manipulate their host’s behaviour to give some survival or reproduction advantage to the parasite.
I wonder if a parallel evolution is going on in the cognitive ecosystem of human culture only now vastly accelerated and enhanced by the WWW?
I wonder if (otherwise ludicrous) ideas that spread on the Internet behave like cognitive parasites and are shaped by natural selection to not only to be easily transmitted, but to alter their host’s cognitive perception of the world in a way that gives the parasitical idea an advantage over more rational, but less communicable concepts?
Once infected with one of these parasite ideas the host’s cognitive gestalt might be tweaked to be more receptive to other parasitical ideas and more prone to rejected reason and the complexity of rational inquiry over the lure of powerfully simple and one-dimensional parasitical ideas. Moreover, parasitical ideas might be shaped by natural selection to have cognitive “hooks” which allow them to link with other parasitical ideas into broad motifs which the gives the infected mind a “chill” of pattern recognition confirming the parasitical idea and thus assuring its propagation.
I wonder if the Internet — being the vast memetic pool in which we all swim, many without the cognitive prophylactic of a proper education — is a medium teaming with memetic parasites that are eroding our ability to reason and think rationally about the world and the nature of reality?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BipazRmzwaQ
00
Feminists like cats, and they rant.
00
The evidence is plainly seen in the behaviour of the illegitimate Laborgreen government and the CAGW movement on any day. Clearly, this is manifest in the current anti-government and anti-CAGW sentiment amongst the people of Australia.
00
Doctor Jason Mazanov tells us that this stress and behaviour is a result of CAGW!
Now it’s this Toxoplasma gondii and the host CAT! Shouldn’t we have:-
A CAT TAX at $23.00 per tonne fresh weight to prevent this CATastrophic – AGW?
00
Say after me: Correlation does not imply causation.
Which means that three quarters did not. But schizophrenia is often diagnosed as a “catch-all” reason for behaviour abnormality, so that might be valid within the profession.
Right, so we have an apparent correlation between toxoplasmosis and shrinkage of the cerebral cortex. But what is the mechanism?
Or we are not talking about schizophrenia at all, but two alternative conditions?
If this was on the subject of climate change, we would be all over a report like this, pointing out its poor reasoning and logical fallacies. Let’s not have a double standard.
00
You’d also be looking at the primary literature.
00
True.
In this case I didn’t because a) it is in work-time for me, and b) I didn’t think I needed to.
00
Rereke, I had a line in my draft saying that I didn’t like that weak epidemiological reasoning for exactly that sentence. I took it out when I read the whole Atlantic article, because it seemed an unnecessary caveat given the evidence. Apologies if you thought that piece of info was there as supporting “evidence”. It’s not. (There were something like 70 studies exploring the links between Schizophrenia and Toxo. Plus those MRI scans which strongly suggested the cysts caused measureable brain damage). I put that “correlation” there for interests sake. It was curious. I didn’t realize that schitzophrenia was rarer in earlier times. (In as much as we can tell, it’s not like we have diagnostic records from say, Africa in the 1700s.)
What’s extraordinary from a study of human infectious disease is to wonder what the Toxo prevalence rates were 200 years ago. Has it really infected 30% of the population since then? That seems unlikely.
“Epstein-Barr virus, mumps, rubella, and other infectious agents, they point out, have also been linked to schizophrenia—and there are probably more as yet unidentified triggers, including many that have nothing to do with pathogens. But for now, they say, Toxo remains the strongest environmental factor implicated in the disorder. “If I had to guess,” says Torrey, “I’d say 75 percent of cases of schizophrenia are associated with infectious agents, and Toxo would be involved in a significant subset of those.” ”
The Full Atlantic Article has a lot more information.
00
Jo,
I assumed you would have been disappointed if I had let the opportunity pass. I presumed (as did KinkyKeith – below) that we were being tested. 🙂
I am skeptical of anything to do with epidemiology. You can prove anything you like with the “science”, as long as you choose the appropriate set of data correlations.
The book, “Sorry Wrong Number”, by Dr John Brignell, has a clown on the front playing a poker machine until he gets a result of P < 5 (95% confidence level).
That book cover sums up epidemiology quite nicely. Most of it is snake oil.
00
John Brignell`s second book “The epidemiologists” explores the often perverse interactions between some epidemiological departments and numbers even further .
00
Thanks for that …
Hay Ho, Hay Ho, to Amazon I go …
00
Very interesting the general low level of rejection makes one wonder whether toxo (as we call affectionately call it) was endemic and tolerated in our* recent history. There are means and ways now to test this question.
* not sure that there is enough info to know if the disease has ethnic or geographic variability
00
I guess we could look at the mutation rate of Toxo to figure out (maybe) how recent the explosion of Toxo was. Given the number of species it seems to affect I would have thought it has been around a long time…
00
the pattern genetic variation in the toxo collected from humans and from other beasts could be different. An explosion as you put it (a star phylogeny, with recent coalescence times) is a pretty simple signature.
When I get a few moments I’ll do a literature search… there is no way that this has not been done as it is trivial lab effort once you have the samples.
00
I think the rise in insanity amongst the political class and elsewhere is due to jet aircraft. Cabin air is taken from the first couple of stages of the compressor of the engines. If the front bearing oil seal leaks you get a mist of jet oil in the cabin air. These are known in the industry as “fume events”. Why does this matter? Modern high performance oils contain a substance known as TCP (tri cresyl phosphate) at around 2 – 3 % concentration which is a neuro toxin. There are 3 chemical isomers which apparently differ vastly in toxicity but all work equally well as a pressure resisting lubricant and the ratios apparently aren’t controlled. There seems to be a vastly differing threshold for effects on individual people.
Interestingly, such a convenient source of high pressure air is not used in the Boeing 787 which uses electrical generators on the engines and electric motors to drive cabin pressure pumps. The official excuse is that bleed air off the compressor reduces fuel economy.
Choose your own story.
00
I suspect a fair proportion of the political class may have been affected by THC. A lot seem to consider admitting to having inhaled or to have experimented to be a badge of office.
00
Are we being tested to see if we can recognise the parallel between CO2 induced Global
Warming Theory and Toxoplasmotically Induced Schizophrenia?
This new paradigm says that Cat carried Toxoplasma Gonadii causes schizophrenia in some people.
Against this we have the “Man made CO2 causes Global Warming”.
In both situations we are looking at a phenomenon with an associated factor that may not
be “causal” but is simply associated with the whole process.
In the case of Schizophrenia the high incidence of cats may be due to loneliness and lack
of human interaction leading to people seeking comfort in a pet. Cats probably are less
trouble in small Parisian apartments.
The schizophrenia is more likely caused by loneliness, isolation and lack of human
interaction in the new style high rise accommodation that is a marked change from earlier
village life where there was less emotional pressure.
Better mental health is more likely in a village atmosphere where you don’t need a cat
because you constantly bump into people.
As we have seen in CO2 induced Global Warming theory, association does not prove causation.
00
“As we have seen in CO2 induced Global Warming theory, association does not prove causation”.
But shouldn’t we test the believers in CO2 induced Global Warming theory for Toxo infection, just to be safe.
After all, they are prepared to risk the economy, the future of our children, the tropical rain forest (despoiled for biofuel) and, under geo-engineering the climate. Not to mention their own physical well being when the whole scam collapses. Infected men tended to have fewer friends, and are more reluctant to change their opinions. Yes, I think we could make a case that they are infected.
If this proves right, then I suggest they be allowed out only when wearing a placard (labelled Unclean) and ringing a bell to warn people to avoid them.
00
The predisposition towards schizophrenia is hereditary but mostly needs triggers related to
emotional pressure.
An example is reported in a group study of Caribbean Islanders who migrated to London.
At point of origin they were apparently OK.
In the confusing, threatening “new” and frantic location of twentieth century London there
was a high incidence of schizophrenia.
Does London make people sick?
Now, is it London, the Cats or Toxoplasma Gonadii.
00
KK – London and cats … obviously.
00
Did the timing of their migration happen to coincide with the production of Cats (the musical) in London?
If so, we might have a cross correlation, or at least a mildly annoyed one.
00
Good point.
The reason why toxo induced schizophrenia didn’t occur much before the 18th century must be because not only did people not own cats for pets but they didn’t do much gardening to come into contact with soil and personal hygiene standards–washing of hands and clothes and veggies–were very high before the concept of “germs.”
Uh huh.
Btw, most dogs that I have interviewed love to excavate and eat kitty “treats” so I wouldn’t be surprised if man’s best friend can also be a vector.
00
My daughter’s Staffies eat kitty kandy. Gross.
00
Dead Right Wes, My dog (Collie)loves kitty pooh.
It is also carried by livestock and birds including wild birds, as about half the world’s population will be infected at some point I think it is a bit ‘out there’ to blame mental conditions on cats.
00
Dead right Wes,
My Collie eats kitty pooh.
But bas to causation? Since about 50% of the worlds population will be infected during their lives, I find it a bit of a reach to suggest that it is also the cause of mental conditions.
00
My Aussie Silky eats possum droppings. Been feeding the possums for years with a steroid additive. They eat cats…caught them one night having a spit over the firepit.
Backed away real slowly.
00
Sorry about the double posting, I am having terrible internet problems – a month and still no visit to fix it.
00
Oh goodie we can blame all things human on an illness. Used to be alcohol and I suppose texting……
00
Hi Rereke,
Seems we had the same idea re causation.
It is quite possible that Toxo G is responsible for some schizophrenia because the cysts will possibly damage, or disrupt brain function.
O/T
Toxoplasma is quite a virulent bacteria. Even on this site it has morphed into a new
variety which so far has gone unnoticed.
00
Vitamin D is also implicated in Schizophrenia. Presumably their Vit D levels dropped within a month of arriving at Heathrow unless they were migrating from Russia/Alaska or other cold climates.
00
Sunny to less sunny places will give you less D vit?
00
And Warner’s are mostly infected females and females trapped in a man’s body?
Sceptics are mostly infected men and men trapped in a female’s body?
00
“As we have seen in CO2 induced Global Warming theory, association does not prove causation.”
The pathogens are excited when they bump into each other and associated groups of human hosts, causing swelling of the brain, with a rising temperature.The symptoms continue unless treated with common sense.
Often, the infected group together in NGO’s, eco-friendly protest groups and quasi-science State granted Campuses. It causes the infected minds confusion, continual bumping in occurs at fund raising meetings.
Once the bright green neurological receptor reaches saturation, the virus becomes inconvertable, spreading slowly until the brain explodes, unless they turned upside down.
00
Prof Julian Jaynes of Princeton made a strong circumstantial case for supposing that schitzophrenia was the ‘default’ mental state until approx 7000 years ago. (Origins of Consciousness in the breakdown of the bi-cameral mind)
00
Interestingly enough, schizophrenia is more prevalent among migrants. For example West Indians who move to the UK.
I have no problem with the causation thingy – the research is still interesting.
00
[snip No Marcus… No.. Jo]
00
That is what the pot does, JB.
00
Amfortas,
A closer reading of Jaynes would be that he thinks primitive peoples actually heard the voices of gods and spirits that manifest themselves in inanimate objects like trees, streams or mountains talking to them, giving them guidance. Jaynes points out that if a modern person was to literally hear voices this would be diagnosed as a schizophrenic condition, but in an ancient pre-rational human culture it doesn’t make sense to think of their mental state as a kind of morbidity, but rather as a natural way of relating to their world that goes back maybe a 100,000 years and is, of course, entirely lost to us, because we no longer speak a language that is grounded in that kind of narrative.
Michel Foucault in his famous book “Madness and Civilisation” traces the definition of insanity in France over a period of centuries and it turns out that the definition is highly variably. So the fact that schizophrenia seems variable through time is more a product of cultural attitudes and fashion rather than objective measurement.
Personally, I believe that insanity is well and truly on the uptick by any standard, with 2012 being the most insane year yet since the mid-1930’s.
Yeah, well old Foucault wrote that before the Age of the Internet. The times are a changin’ again.
00
An interesting point:
“So the fact that schizophrenia seems variable through time is more a product of cultural attitudes and fashion rather than objective measurement.””
Differences in the definition /diagnostic criteria of schizophrenia mean that the rates in the US are different to many other parts of the western world.
Using a common approach to diagnosis would probably show that rates are very similar through all modern societies.
00
That’s true Keith.
But the salient point in Foucault and Jaynes is that the diagnosis of insanity is in practice an arbitrary line in the ever shifting sands of human conscious awareness. Of course, extreme cases are easy, but what about the rest of us?
Are you sure that you aren’t insane? Many of us believe things that would be considered mad or delusional paranoia when examined rationally, point by point.
I love those old movies where a mentally healthy person is committed to the insane asylum and finds it impossible to prove his or her sanity to the satisfaction of the presiding psychiatrists who mistake the prisoner’s sanity for symptoms of madness.
00
Yes.
You read through the diagnostic criteria for most mental disorders and you would believe you had them all.
Diagnosis is a matter of degree of each indicator.
This is not too scientific compared with physics, but then the brain, and people are extraordinarily complex.
00
Yeah, the cut-offs for mental illness seem impact related. ie How much impairment can be attributed towards indicators x/y/z.
If mental properties have a roughly gaussian distribution, then given the amount of mental properties we have, a great deal of people would evidence some sort of extreme if properly measured (as wes sez).
00
http://www.medicinenet.com/toxoplasmosis/article.htm
quoted from
“Toxoplasmosis can be treated medically. The drugs used most often are pyrimethamine (Daraprim), sulfadiazine (Microsulfon), and folinic acid. Patients with HIV usually need lifelong treatment to keep the parasites suppressed.
Pregnant women are treated with spiramycin (Rovamycine) and leucovorin (Wellcovorin) in addition to the drugs listed above.
Other drugs occasionally used are clindamycin (Cleocin), azithromycin (Zithromax), or atovaquone (Mepron).”
quoted from
00
I find the best way to avoid parasites is to maintain a hostile environment. Alcohol in the bloodstream is a seriously toxic substance which few (any?) parasites can survive.
(Declaration of interest- dog, small, friendly, undisciplined.)
00
A message from the cats.
Please, do not panic.
While it is true that we have been controlling you since we first gave you fire, we are a benign race who wish only well for our human pets.
As the superior intelligence on the planet, we had decided three of your centuries ago, that we would no longer require worship or build you any more pyramids or henges.
Unfortunately, since the decision was made by the grand council of cats to allow humans to be free range, we have had to reconsider. To be frank, you have made a mess of things.
Normal service will be resumed soon.
Do not panic.
Was that me typing that?
Or my cat-planted brain-controlling schizophrenic parasitic cyst bug?
NoIdea
00
Sounds like another science scare story again. Not sure who’s side it benefits, the people or the NWO.
Moral is don’t have pets of either sort! Ill stick to my python.
00
Uh … “more likely to wear rumpled old clothes” ? Better get tested.
But hang on … “obsessive compulsive disorder” (aka anal retentive syndrome) nah that’s not me …
” … a large slab of the population might be less afraid to speak up against tyranny.” Uh-oh. Warmists don’t manifest that, but skeptics do.
So, being the snottier and more arrogant group, warmists are likely to claim that skeptics are the ones who should be tested for this thing.
Don’t forget, they are out to take over any idea that preserves their creed, and are happy to move into anyone’s area of expertise …
Strange sideline on Caribbean migrants to the UK and schizophrenia.
When I was there they were 35 times more likely to be diagnosed schizophrenic. Could have been the ganja I suppose, but that was nowhere near as bad as hydroponic dope that’s around these days. More likely explanation is simple prejudice …
00
I can’t remember when I first heard about toxo, could have been psych 201, could have been attenborough.
00
Oddly enough, I remember exactly where I first read about Toxo. It was in NonScientist many moons ago.
I am still trying to figure out what new evidence, if any, has emerged in the intervening 10 years. It’s still just a hint of possibility of a something. And by epidemiologists no less. Why should I take any notice of this scare story now if I ignored the scare story ten years ago? It’s just not stabbing any panic buttons for me. Of course that’s exactly what someone with Toxo would say…
Well I’m off to grab a late Snappy Tom.
Y’all come back meow.
00
Hi Martin,
“When I was there” Where was that Britain or Carib?
“More likely explanation is simple prejudice …”
Why don’t you expand on this?
Who is prejudiced?
00
[responding to KinkKeith]
“When I was there” Where was that Britain or Carib?
Britain
“More likely explanation is simple prejudice …”
Why don’t you expand on this? Who is prejudiced?
Brit medical profession.
Against whom I have considerable prejudice, and for very good reasons.
Spouse affected by the worst type of Pernicious Anemia (damage to the melanin sheath of the nervous system). Ended up paralysed because the cause was assumed to be “functional” eg psychological. When spectacularly proved wrong, local medical administration turned on us, made threats of black-listing, placed the medical records in the hands of a 3rd party MD where they couldn’t be reached by legal process. My construction workmates had to resort to pickaxe handles in my defence on one occasion. We were advised by a supporter (the local mayor) to try the “usual” alternative – hire someone to ram-raid the location of the records.
We told the perpetrators we knew how hard it was to get them into court, but we needed the records because we were leaving the country. They actually had a meeting to determine this was “folie a deux”.
The holder of the records was at the time a prominent member of Amnesty International, but had refused to hand them over, while at the same time preaching publicly about freedom of information, justice for all blah blah.
So, we ended up in PNG, where we were able to apply the appropriate pressure, and were less easy to get at. There followed a short spate of dire threats, eg charges of criminal blackmail etc – to which we replied “fine – go ahead”. (“Make my day” wasn’t common parlance at that time.)
2 weeks later the entire set of medical records arrived by registered air parcel.
Dunno what has happened since 1986, but from what I hear from the UK PA Society, things haven’t improved much.
Enough expansion I think …
00
Martin
You have my complete understanding.
I think most of us here are driven by the CO2 scam but mainly we see a failure of government to govern properly.
By-passing due process undermines the whole society and only politicians and their friends and relatives benefit.
Having said that they have to live in the society they create.
One notorious “payback” for a local left wing politician whose party was “soft on personal responsibility” and drugs underscores that point.
He lost two sons to drug death.
A terrible price to pay for misunderstanding your role as a defender of law and order.
00
I said ” … warmists are likely to claim that skeptics are the ones who should be tested for this thing.”
And the next thing I read was
http://www.australianclimatemadness.com/2012/02/german-article-sceptics-are-like-viruses/
must be psychic eh …
00
One needs to be careful where such notions are taken is there a group ethnic or otherwise that we can demonize or other-ize to build up a lysenko revival, humans are easily so manipulated to suspect, despise, hate.
And I have come across some loopy cat hater’s in my time, and it would not take much to push them over a tipping point.
00
Hi CS
Every ethnic group is susceptible to schizophrenia and environment is an important factor
so giving examples of schizophrenia ” outbreaks” in certain ethnic populations only occurs
because they have undergone a “change of environment’ that is worth studying.
In the right hands there is nothing racist or demonizing about that.
Same for the discoveries that arose from the Dutch winter hunger at the end of WW11. It
was not about the Dutch, it was about the entire human population.
🙂
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Hey Jo,
Can you please do a short piece on the dozens of people dying daily in Europe due to the extreme freeze there (-40C). People need to be made aware of this latest threat from global warm
01
Thanks Jo! You’re the best!
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I just read a similar report or was it a book called World War Z (thought I’d read it before the film comes out).
Don’t forget to destroy the brains.
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This reminds me of ZOMBIE ANTS
This fungus takes control of the ant, keeps it alive until a suitable location for fungal growth is reached, then kills it.
Ants are the ultimate collective. They don’t think as individuals, they don’t stray from the group narrative and are zealots for their cause. They remind me of……….he hehe hehe (you fill in the dots)
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Baa Humbug states: “Ants are the ultimate collective.”
For myself, I always thought it was “The Borg” – that fascinating lot that went around the galaxy, announcing their arrival with: “Resistance is futile.”
I agree with Baa Humbug, such galactic collectives have the uncanny ability to remind one of terrestrial variations which, whilst much smaller, more fragile and unstable are pernicious, vicious little things that have a strange assimilating and spongiforming effect on the CNS of politicians, bankers and policy analysts.
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That picture of a fungus taking control of Mr. Ant creeps me out.
Back in the 1980’s I met this brilliantly mad ethnobotantist charismatic in California named Terence McKenna who had this pretty convincing theory for how language and religion began.
On the savanna of north Africa before the last ice age Homo erectus roamed following the herds they hunted. Naturally, their women folk gathered mushrooms growing on the dung of the herds and these shrooms had chemicals in them that produce a mental effect called synaesthesia where the brain short circuits confusing sight with sound and vice versa. Sounds can be seen and sights can be heard.
McKenna reckoned that this reliably reproducible psychedelic effect triggered a cognitive breakthrough for hominids by allowing the symbolic connection to be made between an object and its “sound.”
Bluntly put, Mckenna imagined that a stoned hominid picked up a rock and heard the sound of the rock speaking and was then able to form that sound with his mouth. ROOOOOCCCCKKKKKKK. And this set in motion a whole cognitive cascade that led to full blown symbolic language. Thus began human cultural evolution as a distinctly new phenomena riding on top of biological evolution. The ability to form language and think symbolically was a phase shift far more important than the relatively minor technological breakthrough of capturing fire, because language allowed human history to begin.
I know it sounds crazy, but there it is. No one actually has put forward a better explanation for how the cognitive breakthrough for symbolic thought began to this day.
But Terence being a botanist and amateur evolutionary guru type fascinated with the symbiotic relationship between various kinds of organisms, including parasitical relationships couldn’t let it just end there.
No, Mckenna figured something much more “intentional” was going on. He reckoned that mushrooms being fungus were other worldly. Neither plant nor animal, their fossil record was very vague. They seem to appear in the geological record fully formed with no evolutionary precursors. Moreover, spores, the fungal seeds, are unique. Most animal seeds can’t survive outside the body, certainly not outside of water. Plant seeds are much more hardy and can be stored sometimes for many decades. But spores are almost indestructible. Spores have been collected off the top of the stratosphere at the edge of space. Spores are so light that our planet is thought to be shedding trillions of spores into space each day as it orbits around the sun.
So Terence theorised that fungal spores originally came from interstellar space, since there is evidence they could survive perhaps for thousands of years in the vacuum of outer space. He reckoned they float from planet to planet terraforming the indigenous life to suit their needs. To achieve their ends they “seed’ planets like Earth with the gift (curse?) of intelligence by cross connecting neural networks that were originally discreet.
What Mckenna was suggesting way back in the 1970’s was that the whole course of human civilisation was guided along by the chemical interactions of a fungal symbiotic (parasitical?) relationship.
I remain skeptical. But that ant with the fungus antenna creeps me out.
Btw, Terence Mckenna always figured that something really really big was going to happen in 2012.
Maybe 2012 is the year we all climb up trees and lock our arms in the branches and wait for giant ungulates from outer space to arrive and while grazing swallow us whole, thus completing the circle of life for a million year old mushroom.
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Wes
Correct!
False!
False
False
Your point?
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Hey Wes, are we sure it was ROOOOOCCCCKKKK?
Maybe it was…..
ROOOOOOCCCCCCCAAAAAA….(Spanish)
SSSCCCCCEEEKEEEEMMBB….(Albanian)
POOOOOOOOKKKKKKKKKKK…..(Bulgarian)
TAAAAAAAAAAŞŞŞŞŞŞŞŞŞ…..(Turkish)
SCCCHHOOOOOKEEEENNNN…..(Dutch)
CAAARRRRAAAAIIIIGGGG……(Irish)
I wonder what language rocks speak/sound?
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That’s a good question, Baaaaa humbug….. Hey Wait A Minute!….OMG! Why didn’t I notice this before?? I’m getting chills…..aa is one of the original phonemes, so is b, h, uu, mm and g, which is solid evidence YOU are in on the conspiracy too!!!
So you already know all Rocks originally spoke interstellar mushroom…eh Bä ˈHəmˌbəg?
Lep.
Sorry to have to blow your cover, mate, but me think it’s time the world knew the truth!
* * *
Today, thousands of scientists are toiling (tax-payer funded no doubt) to crack the primeval language. Sure, there are no practical purposes for this research now, but once NASA invents a time machine, speaking interstellar mushroom will be as invaluable as, say, Kevin Rudd’s knowledge of Mandarin is today. Absolutely priceless!
Of course, Prof Dunbar of Oxford is keeping the fact that human civilisation is really a parasitical mushroom conspiracy with an unknown objective under his hat. No pun intended.
But we’ll all soon find out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAIQJmE75vg&feature=related
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I live on a small farm where I observe on a daily basis the rich variety of fauna “talking” to each other.
From the rooster who clucks distinctly when he finds a worm, and the chickens rush over to him, to the maynah birds screaming alarm at the sight of a hawk and to the horses with their body language and rich variety of gestures.
The above personal experience tells me that the 100k – 200k figure is bunkum.
p.s. damn you for outing me
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I live on a farm too and my sheep love to signal each other but are luckily incapable of symbolic thought.
There’s massive chasm that divides biological signaling and human symbolic syntax, which can construct extremely abstract high order reasoning systems such as mathematics. Human and animal chatter are much further apart then they seem at first glance. We love our animals and in unguarded moments tend to project our reason processes upon their activities.
There’s the “Bow Wow” theory of linguistic evolution. Basically, that the chatter of animals was imitated by hominids and through a gradualistic process somehow language emerged. The problem is that outside of human cognition there are no real examples of syntax (although whale songs exhibit unexplained complexity.)
The Bow Wow theory just hand waves away the vast empty chasm between animal communication and abstract symbolic language. It’s like there is a big blank spot in the fossil record so we just draw in a smooth line connecting proto-Indo-European to Chimpanzee chatter.
That’s not a very useful approach since it ignores questions like how did symbols arise, how did the human voice evolve, why did the larynx descend and how did cognitive thought and consciousness come to be?
Evolution is not a ‘gradualistic’ process that occurs without environmental forcing but more like ‘punctuated equilibrium’ occurring in fits and starts with steady states held in place by strange attractors. This isn’t to deny ‘phyletic gradualism’ because genetic mutation is always drifting away in the background. But if there is no reason to evolve away from an ecological niche then dramatic evolution guided by natural selection won’t happen. Sharks and cockroaches are a good example. So is the global monetary system, which is resisting evolutionary change until it is forced by a dramatic phase shift.
But what we are talking about is the phase-shift from hominid beastie to humanity. It seems to have happened quite rapidly and to a very small population. Maybe the chasm was leapt over in single bound. More of a revolution, than an evolution.
So what we are looking for are possible forcing agents, which caused human conscious awareness to leap up, jump starting human cultural evolution. Parasites that alter behaviour are definitely something to consider. So are psychoactive botanicals, which were quite literally to be found on the hunting tracks of hominids following the great herds.
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“Morgellons” – Follow the white rabbit…
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What seems to be missing from this discussion is any acknowledgement of the extreme usefulness of cats to the human race. They have been traditionally kept for vermin control, at which they excel. Rats and mice also carry diseases that Humans can get — some of which (Hantavirus) are much more directly lethal than toxoplasmosis.
Having been raised on a farm where we stockpiled grain for livestock feed, I always saw cats as necessary to safeguard the grain from rats and mice. It is, in fact, impossible to have a farm with livestock without acquiring cats, like them or not. Where they come from, I’m not sure.
Also, having lived in the mountains in a cabin, I can testify to the extreme lengths to which field mice will go to penetrate your domicile — unless you have a cat or two.
Where I currently live, we have a surfeit of gray wolf spiders, some of which approach 7 cm in length. Yes, I know that the 9 most poisonous spiders in the world live only in Australia, so you aren’t going to be impressed, but these spiders are dangerous to children, and a good cat will completely eliminate them from your house.
I don’t have any personal experience with it, but I imagine that cheap apartments in the city could also benefit from a good hunting cat.
Anyone who keeps cats (or any other pet) should keep them vaccinated against common deseases, and there is a vaccine for toxoplasmosis.
We had ~35 cats on our farm, because my father insisted on feeding them. The theory (which worked) was that, if we fed them we would get a lot of cats and the rat and mice population would be wiped out. We vaccinated our farm cats once a year. Because approximately half of them were feral, this required good planning, courage, and body armor (but that’s another story).
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Hi Bob
Driving out through rural NSW near Coonable we came across an area that was infested with mice. Tens of thousands of them swarming even on the roads.
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Coonamble
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Where Coon comes from … 🙂
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And amble is a slow walking process.
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You need more snakes! pythons preferably!!
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Our Mini-Foxie is amazed that her clan hasn’t had a mention as mice controllers!
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Subtle changes to our minds and genomes as a result of infections with all sorts of micro-organisms will be the hot topic of the next few years. Gut flora can affect brain behaviour, all manner of viruses have unexpected long term effects on the host, chemical from plastics have oestrogenic effects which modify development – it’s endless …
But it has always occurred – see here: http://www.nature.com/news/parasites-drove-human-genetic-variation-1.9345
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As usual this has all been explored in science fiction. See Greg Bear’s “Vitals”. When you are scared enough by that read “Quantico”” by the same author.
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happy Valentines Day folks:
13 Feb: Fox News: Valentine’s Day Destroyed by Climate Change?
That’s right. Global warming is very bad for chocolate…
http://nation.foxnews.com/global-warming/2012/02/13/valentines-day-destroyed-climate-change#
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Pat. Good Spotting,
And woddya know, the person behind it is the science molester – Peter Gleick.
Now some may say that my use of the word Molester might be a bit harsh, but I can use the same flawed logic to justify calling Peter a Molester as he does calling people a Denier.
Is anyone going to try and deny that the logic is any different?
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On the one hand hundreds of people freeze to death In Europes worst winter in decades, an on the other hand cocoa might be mire difficult to grow as the world warms…
Either way… ITS CLIMATE CHANGE, IT’S YOUR FAULT AND YOU NEED TO PAY UP NOW!
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Can I have CAGW back again?
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No.
Next thread is on the Illuminati.
/sarc
00
Fascinating (referring back to 10.2.2.1). The broad spectrum infectious strains are recent (last 10,000 years) and global. It is hard not to think that humans had a big role. It is also a reminder that diseases can appear rapidly and have major affects on species. So many must have raged through human populations and disappeared and so many to look forward to.
One publication of many on the evolution and popgen of T. gondii is pasted below (just the abstract!).
Globalization and the population structure of Toxoplasma gondii
Author(s): Lehmann, T (Lehmann, Tovi); Marcet, PL (Marcet, Paula L.); Graham, DH (Graham, Doug H.); Dahl, ER (Dahl, Erica R.); Dubey, JP (Dubey, J. P.)
Source: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Volume: 103 Issue: 30 Pages: 11423-11428 DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0601438103 Published: JUL 25 2006
Times Cited: 111 (from Web of Science)
Abstract: Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan parasite that infects nearly all mammal and bird species worldwide. Usually asymptomatic, toxoplasmosis can be severe and even fatal to many hosts, including people. Elucidating the contribution of genetic variation among parasites to patterns of disease transmission and manifestations has been the goal of many studies. Focusing on the geographic component of this variation, we show that most genotypes are locale-specific, but some are found across continents and are closely related to each other, indicating a recent radiation of a pandemic genotype. Furthermore, we show that the geographic structure of T. gondii is extraordinary in having one population that is found in all continents except South America, whereas other populations are generally confined to South America, and yet another population is found worldwide. Our evidence suggests that South American and Eurasian populations have evolved separately until recently, when ships populated by rats, mice, and cats provided T. gondii with unprecedented migration opportunities, probably during the transatlantic slave trade. Our results explain several enigmatic features of the population structure of T. gondii and demonstrate how pervasive, prompt, and elusive the impact of human globalization is on nature.
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So now to “be green” we cannot travel?
Never mind that birds and a great number of non Homo mammals ranged wider than Homo Sapiens.
Nope, everything bad is because of humans. Right Gee?
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might help if you read my comment… but I’ll repeat it, “It is hard not to think that humans had a big role. ” So I agree, birds too could have had a big role. The question to ask is then which birds and when.
There are other aspects of the biology of the organism and the disease and the timing of its radiation in different places (for an example see the abstract above) that have been published that implicate human activities as an agent in its spread. I have no idea why you feel the need to confect anti-green ire on the basis of my comment.
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I did read your comment. See, I am able to notice key words like “globalization” as in:
Perhaps you haven’t yet been able to shake the effects of an Agenda on such word selection.
I have.
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Globalization refers only to the fact that the Tox somehow became global. It is not referring to human financial systems nor even humans in particular. Anything that becomes global has globalizes. It is jargon not an agenda. I never joined the agenda so never had to shake it.
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That’s funny Gee “jargon” you say? I though you were smarter than that…..
From the study you quote:
Sure that sounds benign doesn’t it? No agenda there at all. The big business of human globalization and slavery all rolled into science you pass off as “jargon”.
Semantics is a hobby of mine. So is vigilance against anti-libertarian propaganda. So let me pass on a little education via that bastion of truth Wiki:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Globalization
whereapon you can scroll down to “environment”
On your way down check out all the other related “jargon”.
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even so, it refers to the gloabalization of the parasite. The word is common in referring to organisms that are found thoughout the world or even a niche. Good luck with improving your abilities in your hobbies.
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Denial at it’s finest.
Good luck in what ever you do. You’re going to need it.
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Mark, I can’t work out whether I was being too subtle or what you were doing. Anyway, I enjoyed the interaction.
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Gee, I get that were apparently offering more fascinating information to Jo’s post. What I’m attempting (driven no doubt by the parasites in my head) on a different tangent, is to point out to you the language used by the authors of the study you quoted. I do this for no other reason than to expand your mind, open it to what a deep skeptic (me) sees. Your reaction is interesting to me too. You either don’t want to take up the discussion or you simply can’t see what I see. The study authors clearly are using language that perpetuates the “man is bad globalization is bad” meme. You argue that that authors chose the word out of editorial brevity, I argue that they had an deeper intent.
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How about we commission a study of all the world domination characters owned cats. (think James Bond)
For example was Hitler cat person?
[No Mark, Hitler was a dog person, German Shepherds to be precise. His first was called Prinz, his second called Muckl and ofcourse his last and well known one from documentaries was called Blondi who was euthenased in the bunker shortly before Hitler did himself and Eva in. mod oggi]
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He was a dog person
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I know he had dogs, do we know he didn’t have cats? Especially when he was an “artist” in his early years? This relates to the story:
C’mon people, do I just think too fast and type too slow?
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Well, one would hope you think somewhat quicker than 60 words per minute 🙂
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Ha Ha!
Baa, I have much more leeway; I type at around 30 WPM.
When I try really hard, I can out-think what I’m typing. 🙂
My problem is that I think by visualizing concepts not words. Then I have to convert my vision into words. Sometime I don’t get it quite right or I leave out details that I think are obvious.
Alas, the protozoa in my head have taken me this far I wonder where they’ll dump me…….
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Insects have mind control problems too –
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Whoops, I had not scolled back to Baa Humbugs post @ 26
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“>..here’s an especially weird effect, infected men are more likely to be introverted and suspicious and to disregard rules
>[according to] Flegr, “the infected males were much more hesitant than uninfected men
>Flegr has the infection himself, … he seemed unusually happy to take risks that others around him did not
>Toxo infections might make at least males in the population more likely to rebel.”
Perhaps one of the other side-effects is an ability to unquestioningly adopt mutually exclusive positions.
Has no-one else here noticed the contradictions?
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Yes, fair point mullumhillbilly, personality indicators are a mess, and the bell curves of infected vs uninfected have a large overlap. So within each group there will be many contradictions. The piece you sliced ““the infected males were much more hesitant than uninfected men” is out of context – they were hesitant to drink an unidentified fluid. That requires trust. So they can be fearless (in Flegrs personal case anyway) about bullets, but trusting other people fits with the introvert profile and the lack of obedience.
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Jo, something to be really outraged about …
A US Bill to stop public funded science to be available to the public.
The article says that it will affect Australian research as an outcome.
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Well, I have had cats for more than 50 years, and wouldn’t want to be without one or two. If this is a sign of madness, then I’m mad.
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Definitely certifiable. Mostly harmless though … mostly …
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Ahh!
Book Five in the Trilogy!
Tony.
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…moostly…
It was two movie quotes rolled into one.
Almost as though… the egg of one quote was implanted inside the other…waiting to suddenly burst out and twist the original meaning into something horrifying!
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If you are looking for conspiracy theories, the relationship between child asthma and the introduction of lead free fuels is an excellent one. Apparently unburned (when engine was cold) ring chain hydrocarbons (benzenes, toluenes & toluenes) were the cause of the problem These have now been removed by the oil companies and it seems the incidence of asthma has now started to fall.
Problem is: has anyone kept a 30 year old sample of lead free gasoline/petrol to see what was in it?
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Methyl benzene which used to be touted as making one brand of petrol superior to all others is usually called toluene. It wasn’t added, it was there already.
The refineries take a ‘cut’ based on temperature range. That is, everything boiling between temperature A and temperature B goes into the tank. A selected range is designated petrol, another (higher boiling) ‘cut’ is called kerosene, and so on. The composition can vary a bit depending on the feed stock (crude oil). Nor is the range always the same. Petrol supplied in winter is much more volatile (and lower boiling range and flash point) than that supplied in summer.
In the old days of multiple petrol companies, the refinery just filled each companies tank in turn, from a common main. There was no difference between any companies petrol.
The boiling range always includes the boiling point of benzene, so that is, and has always been present. (about 2-3% in Australia). It is just possible that they could exclude toluene, but why bother?
I would think you would have to work very hard to see any difference in petrols in the last 30 years (subject to above comment on feedstocks and seasonal changes).
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For those outside the bowser dealing with ULP most things in it won’t be in short order – e.g. advice to ditch unused chainsaw fuel unless you have added fuel stabiliser.
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Heh. I did research in parasitology for three years. Parasites can be utterly remarkable. One wee trematode beastie, Dicrocoelium dendriticum, at one stage of its life cycle infects snails, which exude a sweet-tasting foam that ants like to slurp on. Trouble is, within the foam are larvae that infect the ant – one of them becomes the “brain worm”, affecting the ant’s behaviour so that towards dusk, it feels compelled to crawl up to the top of a blade of grass, and its mandibles become locked on it. Normally, ants would go back to their nest at dusk.
Sheep like to graze at dusk, so they come along and eat the ant along with the grass, thus getting infected; the next stage, the adult parasite, lives in the sheep’s intestines. There it lays its eggs, which pass out in faeces and produce another larval stage when ingested by snails, and so back to the beginning of the life-cycle.
We think we are very clever. Some of the parasitic flatworms like Dicrocoelium are in some ways cleverer.
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Don’t worry the toxo infected parts of your brain should be harmlessly destroyed by your mobile phone leaving no evidence of either problem unless the bread preservatives, ritalin and prozac upset the balance. Who took the funding away from this research and gave it to climate scammers?
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One thing which will kill Toxo is AC 395kHz from a small 9 volt battery. You need a frequency generator circuit and some short copper pipe hand electrodes wrapped in wet cloth to attach the wires to. Most paracites have a frequency which upsets them and you only need to do it for about 5 mins/day.
Interestingly the AC current opens the cell membrane ‘pumps’ so if you are on (say) Prozac you end up with over 10X the dose crossing over into your cells, – bad news.
In about 1996, for about A$40 I built a +ve off-set square wave-form DC pulser and over the years it’s been used to great effect on myself, children and horses instead of antibiotics. Various people have researched this including Dr Bob Beck and Dr Hulda Clark but the earliest reference I found was at the US Patents Office to Dr Steven Kaali in 1993 (No. 5,188,738) His original work detailed cleaning a patient’s blood of HIV in vivo.
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The late Hulda Clark PhD (paracitology) says on page 263 of “The Cure For All Disease” that ergot mold is associated with schitzophrenia. Ergot makes LSD. Clark reckoned that paracites and some form of chemical pollution are behind many diseases including cancer and AIDS.
It should be quite easy to research schizophrenia within the massive US prison population where consumption of moldy food could be monitored and compulsory medical testing for T.gondii and ergot would be easy.
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“”It should be quite easy to research schizophrenia within the massive US prison population where consumption of moldy food could be monitored and compulsory medical testing for T.gondii and ergot would be easy.””
OMG, J Knowles, do they already get served moldy food in US prisons, or are you really suggesting the prisons should be classed as no more than Lab rats?
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I’m not suggesting we deliberately trial prisoner on bad food but the large prison population does:
1. afford controlled study conditions which are difficult to repeat in the general community and2. prisons have very high numbers of behaviorally impaired subjects.
3. In reality when we test some so-called "fresh" foods they reveal traces of molds, aflatoxins, paracites and eggs.
Ultimately the prisoners might benefit enormously.
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See also Carl Zimmer’s “Parasite Rex”.
BTW dogs seem to cause deafness in their owners.
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Probably explains your paranoia and why you so easily believe a complex conspiracy theory rather than a simpler logical answer to everything.
Off to the doctor with you jo.
————
REPLY: Denying MRI scans and dozens of peer reviewed research also eh? Jo
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I’m almost certain Brussels Sprouts…cause brain damage.
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Confusion of cause and effect, Kim.
EATING Brussels Sprouts is almost certainly a sign of a damaged brain.
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No no no 🙂
Did not Brussels allow them to be named after them?
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Only if the Sprouts are accredited to the EU.
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Brussels is accredited to the EU. It’s in Belgium 🙂
And I’m almost certain that eating their sprouts will cause me brain damage.
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My research indicates an application of sufficient quantities of cheese and bacon sauce will render all but the organically grown type not only harmless but entirely edible .
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Post-normal science! 🙂
I ran it through my model – you see.
97% of kids say, “forcing them to eat Brussels Sprouts…causes their brains to bring on the gag reflex.” [ Hey, it’s good enough for iPCC AGW climate sources ] 🙂
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Brussels Sprouts.
The only ingredient that did not improve the flavour of Stone Soup.
Tony.
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The primary host of these beasties is the cat.
I’ve owned a few cats over the years and found them to be a most affectionate and useful domesticated animal.
Another common characteristic I’ve noticed is their love of classical music, particularly Beethoven. At present, for instance, Fred is displaying what appears to be ecstatic delight in the Opus 20 Septet.
I’m wondering if, as well as the other human behaviour changes (increased risk of traffic accidents etc.), Toxoplasmosis might also cause Beethoven addiction.
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We’ve had cats as popular pets at the exact period that global civilisation has advanced beyond wildest dreams, and the global population has boomed. What’s the problem.
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MattyB
You state:
What period are speaking of? The Roman Warming period? The 2000BC Egyption period? The Asian 4,000 BC period?
Your statement of “Exact period of global civilation” maybe incorrect! Help!
There’s no problem with cats – just the timeline you speak of!
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MattB
What’s the problem? We still have the bloody cats!
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Affectionate, cuddly and pleasant creatures they are – and are also a wild animal the moment they walk out your door, viz the dead sugar glider I found next to my car this morning. And the kids wonder why I won’t agree to another “cute” kitten!
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If you truly love our distinctive wildlife, then get down on your knees every day and give thanks that we have cats.
If it weren’t for cats our birdlife, and much of our distinct marsupial species, would have been rendered extinct long ago.
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Well MV that is a puzzler. I’ll have a go.
The bird is in the tree. The cat is on the ground. The cat can climb the trunk, and maybe a branch, but it will never get out to the leaves without giving away its position. Ergo, cats have great difficulty catching birds.
Snakes, on the other hand, can slither up to the smallest of branches, devour a bird egg, and.. be caught by the cat when it reaches the ground.
Is that it? Do I win a prize?
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In the right direction Andrew, but not close enough for a prize, I’m afraid. Being cold-blooded, in the grander scheme of things, snakes just don’t eat that much. Birds and snakes had reached some sort of balance long before the first European settlers – and their cats – arrived.
The first ships had cats on them to control the rats. And when the first ships arrived so did the rats. Unlike a snake, which will consume an entire egg or two, and then curl up and go to sleep for a few days, a rat will climb a tree and systematically work its way through EVERY nest, breaking and destroying EVERY egg. The only explanation I can offer for this is that maybe rats view birds as competitors for food. Most native birds have no defense against this form of slaughter.
For this very reason birds in the wild will actively seek out places with a healthy cat population because they know there will be no rats.
Thumper and I have been married for over thirty years, and most of that time we lived in the bush. We also always had cats. It was fun to watch the male adult Willy Wag-Tails fight over the best nesting spots in the eaves around the verandah where the cats sunned themselves.
Cats hunt birds opportunistically. That is, if a bird is stupid enough to land within pouncing distance of a cat then it’s fair game, but outside of that, cats don’t bother. There are lots of things easier to catch. I’ve never seen an adult cat climb a tree all the way up to the small branches hunting birds. Cats, by and large, are too smart for that. The closest I’ve ever seen was a friend who had a cat that used to sleep in a low, shrubby tree frequented by Finches, but even then, the rare catches were opportunistic rather than deliberate stalking.
Birds will actually use cats to train their young. I used to watch as Willy Wag-Tails would teach their young to fly. Then one day Mum and Dad would bring the two or three young ones to the fence, and Dad would go and find Bear, our beautiful jet black cat. The bird would dive-bomb Bear until finally Bear would give half-hearted chase, and Dad would lead Bear to where the family were waiting on the fence.
Then Mum and Dad would take turns flying down to the ground, grabbing a seed, and then immediately return to the perch on the fence to eat it. With much chattering and flapping of wings Mum and Dad would eventually get the young ones to copy them.
The lesson continued until, inevitably, one chick would get interested in something on the ground, and dally for a just a moment too long. In that moment it became Bear’s breakfast. Lesson learned, Mum and Dad would lead the surviving chicks back to the safety of the trees.
It was during that period of my life that I learned tomato plants were more intelligent than chooks, but that’s another story.
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It`s actually a case of the introduced small herbivores i.e. mice , rats and rabbits , wildly outperforming the local ones .
A case in point is the new holland mouse which is timid , with a low breeding rate and a narrower selection of suitable food types compared to the introduced mouse . The end result of this sort of competition for a particular ecological niche is almost a forgone conclusion untill You introduce an “equaliser” in the form of the feral cat . The timidity of the new holland mouse now becomes an advantage as the more adventurous nature and higher breeding rate of the introduced mouse now just increases the probability of it being lunch .
Not surprisingly , the trend seems to be that the NHM is holding it`s own against it`s competitor where there are feral cat populations and losing where there aren`t . One of the numbers often cited by felinaphobic Greens is ” up to 15% of the stomach contents of feral cats are native animals ” the other side of the coin not mentioned is that 85% to 95% of the stomach contents of said cats are introduced species and even after the trophic cascade that happened on Macquarie island one question that is never asked is ;
“What would happen if those individual members of that introduced species were out breeding instead of being digested in a cat`s stomach”
As usual , real ecosystems , which run on blood , guts and crap are vastly more complex than the ones which run on rainbows and pixie dust that exsist in the heads of the MSM and Greenies
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A successful parasite never takes more than it needs, and that’s where Big Government went off the rails.
Well I’m safe then , I much prefer Bach to Beethoven… I’m rather partial to peace and quiet as well.
Hmmm, interesting that this is much more of a benefit to the women than the men, given the different effect on the two genders. Possibly there’s a much older pathway in the human brain that originally served the purpose of standing up to tyranny (men get defensive and rebellious, women get pliable and obedient), and the bug just activates what is already there.
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Restecp
New respect for cats.
Different from dogs but good for the environment and natural balance.
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Cats are vermin.
All they do is kill wildlife.
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Picking up on a couple of sidelines again – sorry …
Jo: “I didn’t realize that schitzophrenia was rarer in earlier times … ”
In traditional societies, apparent mental aberration is sometimes treated differently.
In PNG for example, there is (or was?) the concept of the “long-long” [person]. They are a bit odd, but are granted a degree of tolerance because (a) they might have a better connection with the spirit world than the rest of us, and (b) may therefore enjoy a degree of protection from that world.
I saw evidence that supported the concept, but believing it or not is not the point; it is a healthier social construct than the alternative provided by the west.
“Vitamin D is also implicated in Schizophrenia … ”
Could be something in this I guess.
As residents of the UK, if we wanted to holiday somewhere with guaranteed sun (and enough customers that year had paid cash) we would go to the south of France. Fellow holidaymakers from the UK, of Caribbean extraction, would sometimes laugh at “whitey” slapping on sunscreen. Laugh was on them – within 24 hours they would be rushing to pharmacies for their own supply – their assumed immunity had entirely disappeared.
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The question that needs to be asked here though Jo is what selective advantage confers to the parasite by inducing such behaviour in humans.
Does suicide perpetuate Toxoplasma gondii? Or is infection of humans an evolutionary dead end?
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In the olden days, before ambos and latex gloves, when people went splat they tended to get bodily fluid on their neighbours.
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I think that it is commonly accepted that, for Humans, it is advantageous to have at least some of the males willing to take risks. This is not necessarily good for them as individuals, but can provide a lot of value to their group (tribe, nation, etc), in terms of both seeking out new opportunities and protecting the group from dangers.
From an evolutionary point of view, many males (maybe most) are surplus — that is, not needed to propagate the race — while few or no females can be so considered. It is interesting, therefore, that this parasite makes males less social and take risks, but females become more socially connected.
This parasite might actually be partially responsible for a fair amount of the progress of civilization!
So, the answer to JMD’s question above might be: If the parasite helps Humans to be come more successful and populous, then the parasite also becomes more successful.
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I knew there was a reason why I only eat well done meat…..
As for those cooking programs that keep promoting only barely cooking meat, you have to wonder whether they deliberately want human beings to be infected by Toxoplasmosis.
Man invented Fire for a reason – To COOK meat!
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I’ve heard of bat shit crazy.
Recently I was adopted by a peacock. It just flew in one day. Liked the look of our tree.
So I’m wondering how long it’ll be until I’m pronounced bird shit crazy?
It’s got kind of an ‘invasion of the body snatchers’ feel to it.
Can’t we get Dr. McCoy to put a test subject in the isolation tank, bombard them with theta rays until the parasite is removed?
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Well, I guess I’ll be safe then. I wear gloves when gardening, cook my meat very good, and only like one kind of pussy (it certainly ain’t the kind mentioned here). 😉
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