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Parasites That Can Control Insect Minds
Ant writes to tell us that NewScientist is running an article about an interesting parasite that apparently has the power to 'brainwash' its host. From the article: "The parasitic Nematomorph hairworm (Spinochordodes tellinii) develops inside land-dwelling grasshoppers and crickets until the time comes for the worm to transform into an aquatic adult. Somehow mature hairworms brainwash their hosts into behaving in way they never usually would - causing them to seek out and plunge into water."
Here you go.
Basically, a parasite in cats passes to humans and a research study revealed that...f ected-your-brain-yet.html
2 977,1048642,00.html
"...women infected with toxoplasma spent more money on clothes and were consistently rated as more attractive. "We found they were more easy-going, more warm-hearted, had more friends and cared more about how they looked," he said. "However, they were also less trustworthy and had more relationships with men." "By contrast, the infected men appeared to suffer from the "alley cat" effect: becoming less well groomed undesirable loners who were more willing to fight. They were more likely to be suspicious and jealous. "They tended to dislike following rules," Flegr said."
Here's the first link I could find that refers to the story I first read in the UK Times a while back (the link to the Times in the blog is broken but the best bit of the Times story was some suggestion that this parasite might explain the behaviour of the cat-loving French): http://althouse.blogspot.com/2005/06/have-cats-af
and another to the Guardian (UK) on a similar vein: http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/thisweek/story/0,1
CATS MUST BE STOPPED!
Sometime the mechinsim is not the important part; just the discovery. What if Newton didn't publish gravity because he didn't understant the mechignism by which it works?
"You will do foolish things, but do them with enthusiasm." - S. G. Colette
...drives humans to water for pain relief- not exactly mind control, but the same result:
from Guinea Worm Disease Facts...
What are the signs and symptoms of Guinea worm disease?
A few days to hours before the worm emerges, the person might develop a fever and have swelling and pain in the area where the worm is. A blister develops and then opens into a wound. When the wound is immersed in water, the worm begins to emerge. Most worms appear on the legs and feet, but they can occur anywhere on the body. After the worm emerges, the wound often becomes painfully swollen and infected.
http://www.astdhpphe.org/infect/guinea.html
Guinea Worm Disease Facts
Have you ever noticed that anybody driving slower than you is an idiot, and anyone going faster than you is a maniac?
Hey! That was my joke, but now thwat I see that you've been modded down, you can have it.
;-)
Yeah, it seems those brain control parasites are more common as one might think..