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Mind Control Parasites in Half of All Humans
iiii writes "According to a Yahoo News
story, half of the world's human population is infected with Toxoplasma,
a parasite shown to alter the brain function of rats, inducing them into behavior that benefits the parasite but is suicidal for the rat. So what affect does it have on humans? Article comes complete with Heinlein 'Puppet Masters' reference. I call dibs on using Toxoplasma as a name for my rock band."
Insert Political/religious/OS statement here.
Really should be more insightful than funny, but that's not for me to decide.
I for one have ALREADY welcomed our parasitic overlords.
"I'm going to f***ing bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I'm going to f***ing kill Google"
...of God's Intelligent Design(TM) here on Earth!!
I favor unreasonably huge subsidies to the brain slug planet.
These aren't the parasites you are looking for.
liqbase
You are mean.
Apologize to the parasites.
...or at least it doesn't matter. Toxoplasma has been around and known for a long time. The only real news is that infection rates are *down* (from something like 90% iirc not so long ago) because humans are spending less and less quality time with rodents. This mostly concerns pregnant women, who risk losing their fetus if the *catch* toxoplasma during the pregnancy. So it is far better to be part of the 50% who is already infected so that your antibodies are prepped. So yeah, move along.
Congratulations! Now we are the Evil Empire
Or not. From the Wikipedia:
Toxoplasma gondii is a species of parasitic protozoa that lives in cats and other warm-blooded animals and can cause the disease toxoplasmosis in humans. It belongs to the Apicomplexa and is the only known member of the genus Toxoplasma.
and under "Toxoplasmosis"
Toxoplasmosis is a parasitic disease caused by the parasite Toxoplasma gondii. It infects most animals and causes human parasitic diseases, but the primary host is the felid (cat) family. People usually get infected by eating raw or undercooked meat, or more rarely, by contact with cat faeces.
At least one third of the world population may have contracted a toxoplasmosis infection in their lifetime but, after the acute infection has passed, the parasite rarely causes any symptoms in otherwise healthy adults. However, people with a weakened immune system are particularly susceptible, such as people infected with HIV. The parasite can cause encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and neurologic diseases and can affect the heart, liver, and eyes (chorioretinitis).
Much less interesting than TFA's speculation based on Toxoplasma's pathology in rats, but more credible.
What's more, TFA does not give any indication about how they came up with the "half the human population" figure.
Posted AC to avoid charges of Wikipedia-karma-whoring.
Since toxoplasma makes rats unafraid of or even like cat urine, I think it's all a diabolical scheme by the cats. I used to think cats only tolerated us until they could figure out how to operate a can-opener, but now I've realised its a much more cunning scheme - to make humans the slaves of cats!
Old ladies are obviously the most affected after a lifetime of exposure, but its only a matter of time before we all become food suppliers and grooming slaves to our cat overlords. Just look what happens to people when you show them pictures of fluffy kittens, they go all gooey and unable to think straight - my girlfriend is a typical example, she defends her cats against any criticism, because they're so 'cute'.
We must act now, while some of us can still see what the cats are up to. We must destroy the cat menace!
Remember kids, it's all fun and games until someone commits wholesale galactic genocide.
The term "bio-rootkit" is not one I wish to see in common usage!
"Influence" rather than "control". TFA originates in a site that looks for SF in the news, sometimes they look rather too hard. But consider how you act when you have a cold -- sneezing, for instance, creating a nice aerosol spray to spread the virus. Many skin infections casue itchiness, making you scratch and distribute flakes, containing spores; etc. (If this is Intelligent Design, I'd like to ask who is the Chosen Race -- us or the parasites?)
Which parasites? Toxoplasmas or politicians?
What makes mind control interesting, that is not usually thought of, is awareness of it. Since our brain is controlling everything we do, altering its functioning would propably go unnoticed. In movies characters usually try to fight againts mind control and even in everyday thoughts we imagine mind control to be something that is againts our will. When you think of it a bit further, you might notice that what mind control actually does, is make our emotions balanced in the way that we actually want to do what it wants us to do. As stated in the article, rats repeatedly did things againts logical behaviour. Now, if you think how many of your actions is based on logic and how many on emotions, you might be able to guess my point.
But then again, this is just my theory. I hope your can prove it wrong. Only variable that would definately prove it wrong, would be existence of a soul. It would provide us something that can't be affected by change of chemical balance in brain. But more likely is that each and every one of us is under some kind of mind control. Everything affects our emotions, from food to movies, regardless of if it resides physically in our brain or affects through our senses.
Before we get too carried away, note that the numbers indicate the number of people with the antibodies to toxoplasma gondii, not the number of people with active infection. Antibodies just mean you have been infected at some point in your life - and the mental status changes seem to be primarily in those infected as infants or born to infected mothers. This connects well with the known etiology of toxoplasmosis, and is why the MD tells your pregnant wife/girlfriend/mom to stay away from cats.
Still, it is really interesting how many diseases have been found recently to be of infectious etiology - ulcers (no, it's not the pizza), many forms of heart disease, and now possibly some forms of schizophrenia. Makes prevention at least plausible...
Using plain ol' text since 1968