Slashdot Mirror
Parasites Makes Us Dumber or Sexier
odie_q writes "It has long been known that the Toxoplasma gondii parasite alters its host's behavior, but now it seems the way it alters it depends on the sex of the host. From the article: 'A common parasite can increase a women's attractiveness to the opposite sex but also make men more stupid, an Australian researcher says ... Infected men have lower IQs, achieve a lower level of education and have shorter attention spans. They are also more likely to break rules and take risks, be more independent, more anti-social, suspicious, jealous and morose, and are deemed less attractive to women. On the other hand, infected women tend to be more outgoing, friendly, more promiscuous, and are considered more attractive to men compared with non-infected controls.'"
Clearly, this is a textbook case of toxoplasmosis. You should keep your hands out of the litter box.
Do you like German cars?
A scientific explaination of Jocks and blondes.
So THAT's what happened to me. Suddenly everything makes sense, and it's all Smokey's fault.
It's sad when choosing an installation directory on your own qualifies you as an "advanced user."
Me hate stupid article. Me go fly off tall building now.
Do not try to read the dupe, thats impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth
What truth?
There is no dupe
combined with the extremely high incidence of human infection in both developing and developed countries
fits with old "hot blooded" stereo types.
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
The whole thing sounds like a load of cat crap to me.
They are also more likely to break rules and take risks, be more independent, more anti-social, suspicious, jealous and morose, and are deemed less attractive to women.
Hum, if you add "addicted to an internet news site" it would perfectly match the Slashdot syndrome.
I thought those were linked, but I didn't realize you needed a parasite in both people! Whenever I see a hot gal I suddenly become more stupid and whenever I get drunk (and become stupid) all of the women suddenly become hot. Who needs a parasite for this?
Do you think HR will buy my parasite excuse for what I did to that girl? I know where to get a phony doctor note.
Table-ized A.I.
What are the odds that guys with low IQs, short attention spans, and an affinity for risks are just more likely to eat undercooked meat, and that the more outgoing promiscuous women catch it because of them.
Wheres the damn Goa'uld tag when you need it?
Don't worry, they only hanged one of the dozen surgically-altered clones. He'll show up in Gaza or the like 5 years from now to stir things up.
Table-ized A.I.
...apparently.
My (ex)girlfriend becomes infinitely more promiscuous and more attractive.
While I degenerate into a morose, unattractive piece of shit.
Fucking cats and their fucking toxoplasma.
Seriously. He used to be quite articulate. I just saw a youtube snippet of him talking fast, articulate, and using big words in the mid 90's. It was like a different man. Something changed him into a stubburn bumbler. Some speculate drug abuse, but everyone around him says he swore off substance abuse decades ago.
Table-ized A.I.
Can I have 5 of those, please? or maybe 10...
I found this piece of news very interesting. Is it known how the parasite affects our behavior? If it secretes a chemical that has the effect, I'd say this could be used for treatment in a variety of medical conditions. If it "attacks" specific areas of the brain, it may reveal interesting things about it.
Things such as this hints to how our minds work, which is possibly one of the most fascinating things in the universe (:
Hey oog, make sure to give back the OoGhiJ MIQtxxXA super computer before hurling yourself off the tall building.
Push Button, Receive Bacon
-- I ignore anonymous replies to my comments and postings.
For those who didn't RTFA, one of the ways of catching this disease is by accidentally digesting cat feces (if the cat is effected with the bacteria). Smokey is a fairly common name for a grey cat here in the States.
Read my blog posts on usability.
Maybe it is the next phase, of mind evolution? Snowcrash popularized tower of babel, where humans evolved through infection by a meta-virus, that had real life counterpart with same effects(Nam-shub evolution into real world). The virus broke down barriers between clearly separated brain parts and made them more equal in reasoning on how to behave.o usness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind
;)
links:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Consci
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash
Also if you haven't read snow crash, you must do so immediately.
I can deal with being stupider as long as I can play the holophoner.
So how come I can't play the holophone?
barack to the future?
Correlation != causation.
Even since the last time this came up, I haven't seen anything done to differentiate between "symptoms of infection" and "traits of average cat owners."
The two female slashdottians hunt down these parasites, breed them to extremes, and infect both themselves and their intendeds...
And all this time I thought I was getting sexier.
------ The best brain training is now totally free : )
This might sound like baloney, but I swear (no joke) that the last time I took
antibiotics I felt amazingly clear-headed. It could also of course have been
the fact that the antibiotics were curing me as they're supposed to -- but
I was convinced that there was something more to it.
Could this be a case of Toxoplasma infection? Are antibiotics effective against it?
I believe this is one of those news stories that sits around waiting for a slow news day. The original paper was released in November. It's written by Kevin Lafferty and was published in Proc. Roy. Soc. B.
It's a really quite fascinating paper - I recommend tracking it down if you can get access. Here's how it goes: Toxoplasmia gondii is adapated to live in cats and reproduces in felid intestinal cells & is shed, encysted, in their feaces. Then it can directly infect cats who come into contact with the cysts, or it encysts in brains of smaller mammals, and moves up the food chain as they get eaten until it hits a cat, and can reproduce again.
Fascinatingly, T.g. appears to affect rodent behavior to increase predation risk - i.e. the rodents become more active, less fearful of cat/cat smells, and have increased dopamine levels (which supposedly leads to novelty seeking behavior and neuroticism-type behaviors, or at least, they do in humans).
Despite humans not having any major cat predators, it could still affect us as a byproduct type of thing. Particularly that whole dopamine increase - this is should increase neuroticism levels.
So - the big question - does prevalence of T.g. correlate with cultural variation in neuroticism in humans? Lafferty finds a fairly strong correlation ( r2 of 0.38 ) between population aggregate neuroticism (as measured by the fairly standard NEO PI-R personality inventory ).
Unfortunately I think the populations he uses for his stats are a little bit suspect (always the problem with worldwide analyses though), but it's definitely worth a read. You should also keep in mind that so far it's only an interesting correlation and not a direct demonstration that T.g. causes large scale cultural differences.
henry -- the human evolution news relay
I knew there was a reason that my friends told me not to eat the tequila worm ... if only I had known.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
# Accidentally swallowing cat feces from a Toxoplasma-infected cat that is shedding the organism in its feces. From TFA.
Is there any parasite that makes MEN more attractive?
As if we didn't have enough biological disadvantages in the mating game, this one is nature's way of applying the final curb stomp.
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
Title: "Parasites Makes Us Dumber or Sexier".
You're a fucking editor. Learn some grammar you dumbass.
Substitute Bush for Saddam, Bible for Koran, and Jesus for Mohammed and your post just might make sense.
Based on the description, this parasite will turn that ugly girl next door into a hot, promiscuous girl who might stop pepper spraying me! Sign me up for two!
Alright, fantastic. A parasite that might be able to change my behaviour. Possibly for the worse. Naturally, I don't particularly relish the idea that there's a parasite in my brain effecting the way I think and act.
So, assuming one has such a parasite, are there treatments to get rid of it?
I am pretty sure this is a dupe and was already discussed to death. I am trying to fight the slashdot search engine but up to now "parasite" and "toxoplasm" did not give any search result back... Maybe someone can point out what article it was ?
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
I didn't know testosterone could be spelled Toxoplasma gondii
From the wikipedia article:
Acute toxoplasmosis
During acute toxoplasmosis, symptoms are often flu-like: swollen lymph nodes, or muscle aches and pains that last for a month or more. Rarely, a patient with a fully functioning immune system may develop eye damage from toxoplasmosis. Young children and immunocompromised patients, such as those with HIV/AIDS, those taking certain types of chemotherapy, or those who have recently received an organ transplant, may develop severe toxoplasmosis. This can cause damage to the brain or the eyes. Only a small percentage of infected newborns have serious eye or brain damage at birth.
Treatment
The vast majority of patients with a normal immune system require no treatment.
Patients with HIV/AIDS or patients who are immunosuppressed should be given sulfadiazine and pyrimethamine. Pregnant women who become ill with acute toxoplasmosis should be treated with spiramycin. Folinic acid (leucovorin) is administered in all cases to reduce the bone marrow suppression caused by pyrimethamine (ref: Montoya JG, Liesenfeld O. Toxoplasmosis. Lancet. 2004 Jun 12;363(9425):1965-76. )
Latent toxoplasmosis
Most patients who become infected with Toxoplasma gondii and develop toxoplasmosis do not know it. In most non-immunodeficient patients, the infection enters a latent phase, during which only bradyzoites are present, forming cysts in nervous and muscle tissue. Most infants who are infected while in the womb have no symptoms at birth but may develop symptoms later in life.
Treatment
The cysts are immune to the standard acute treatments as the antibiotics do not reach the bradyzoites in sufficient concentration.
The antibiotic atovaquone has been used to kill Toxoplasma cysts in situ in AIDS patients.[3] In mice, a combination of atovaquone with clindamycin seemed to optimally kill cysts.
"A common parasite can increase a women's attractiveness to the opposite sex but also make men more stupid"
What do you mean by more stupid?
www.isoHunt.com
I keep telling you people there has to be something in the water making humanity stooooopid.
"Never attribute to malice what can be explained by incompetence".
I so hoped that George W. Bush would win the 2004 elections to make sure he is still president when the failure of his presidency becomes more clear. So no one can blame the ongoing breakdown in Iraq and the reappearing Taliban in Afghanistan to a liberal and weak Democrat administration which messes anything up the Bush Administration has started.
I was starting to wonder if the strategies of the Bush administration might just be based on complete incompetence and ignorance after them closing in on Iraq in connection to 9/11. I had a teacher who was in Iraq on a development project in the 1970ies with still some connections there, and according to her Iraq had a mainly agnostic government based on arabic-nationalist and socialist ideas (e.g. arabic nationalsocialism). Tariq Aziz, the former second man in Iraq, is a maronite christian, not a muslim after all. So all alleged connections to a fundamentalist muslim group were doubtfull at best. Saddam Hussein was trying to play the muslim card after the fall of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the Soviet Union, because Socialism was no longer fashionable, but with the Gulf War in 1992 the Muslim Card also failed because all neighboring states (both baathist/fascist like Syria and fundamentally islamic as Saudi Arabia and the Gulf Sheikdoms) were telling him off.
In the end Saddam Hussein seemed to me just a dictator which tried to cling on power with all means, and I guess he was completely unideologic except for the ideology that he was not to be toppled.
A big hint to the complete misinterpretation of the situation in Iraq was to me that the development of the war was so different from the predictions. The South, which was considered pro-intervention and expected to greet the U.S. troups with flowers and celebration, was fighting hard, and the Sunni Triangle, which was suspected to be strongly defended and determined for a last stand, was taken within the matter of days. When the toppling of Saddam's statue in Bagdad was mainly watched with lethargy by the people (compare the video footage with that of the Berlin Wall in 1989!) and only a U.S. tank managed to pull it down finally I knew: The invasion was utterly botched, and the Iraqi population was at best waiting how it would work out in the end. The plundering and looting in the following weeks might have finally tilted the balance against the U.S., and at this very moment I was sure that the cause of "bringing democracy to the Arab world" was lost.
It just took two hundred thousands dead Iraqis, the Abu Guraib scandal, the Guantanamo disaster and another three years of ongoing insurgence in Iraq to let the U.S. electorate figure out the same thing. And the Bush administration seems only to have changed course to avoid a complete election catastrophe in November 2006. So this movement seems not to be not based in a thinking process within the administation, but just a tactic maneuver to stay in power.
...its a symbiant not a parasite.
So the real story here is that women have symbiants that parasitise men.
here you go
Last year, someone mentioned it works by producing LSD to control the host.
I think we can keep recursing like this until someone returns 1
I've got two cats at home and I do .NET programming at work!
The second link in the story is to the previous Slashdot coverage. It's not a dupe because more information is presented here.
Reality is defined by the maddest person in the room
...infected women tend to be more outgoing, friendly, more promiscuous, and are considered more attractive to menPerhaps it's just me, but my first thought after reading the summary was that the best and brightest the world of cosmetics marketing has to offer are probably working on the advertising campaign right now. "New, from L'Oreal: toxoplasmosis, the only parasite derived from cat shit that's /guaranteed/ to make you MORE ATTRACTIVE to the opposite sex. Because you're worth it!"...
Given the crap they already get women to shell out fifty quid for a couple of ounces, parasite-infected cat shit would be a relatively easy sell.
Everything I needed to know about life, I learnt from Blake's Seven
Damn you're sexy, you have parasites don't you ?
Wanna fight ? Bend over, stick your head up your ass, and fight for air.
it had the same effects regardless of sex, and what differs is the social perception? As in, it makes both men AND women stupider, most men find stupid women attractive, but most women prefer smart guys? Disclaimer: I'm not a heterosexual.
It doesn't look to me as this is a terminal illness, the infection is gone in a few weeks to months, so it's hardly an explanation for the world's stupidity.
Why UNIX?
Let this be a lesson to the other religeous dictators
- We will gather evidence of your tyranny and war crimes
- We will invade and hunt you down like a dog
- We will trial you in your own country
- We will kill you
- Your countrymen will cheer when you are gone
So, uhh, when are we going after Bush?
NT
I, for one, welcome our new Toxoplasmosis overlords.
boycott slashdot February 10th - 17th check out: altSlashdot.org
I don't have access to this "Australasian Science" magazine and it doesn't seem to contain the original research anyway. Does anyone have the references for the claim that the change in personality depends on the sex of the host?
Gee, this bears remarkable similarity to a guy's night out getting hammered at the local watering holes.
Government's idea of a balanced budget: take money from the right pocket to balance...oh who am I kidding?
does anyone know what the name of the drug is to cure the disease... i'm sure a vast portion of the male population would like to take it... not so sure about the females...
Why UNIX?
Awesome, another thing I can blame on the cats, right next to breaking that glass and hiding the remote!
--Rob
Towards the Singularity.
Or is the behavior being interpreted differently based on gender?
It sounds like the parasite simply amplifies the affects of certain sex hormones in both sexes, and lowers inhibitions... In civilized men, too much of a good thing. (For less civilized men, it means "Jackass: The movie".) As for women, it's hard to draw conclusions about the intelligence of someone who's "more outgoing, friendly, more promiscuous". Some would consider that to be potentially more "risky," regardless of the fact that most men like the end result.
Since the rat study indicated that the parasite changed rat behavior to increase its own chances of survival (while putting the host rat at risk of being eaten by a cat), I wonder if the results of the behavior modification in humans could potentially result in more pregnancies and might therefore be a failed attempt by the parasite to insure survival as well.
If the parasite works by increasing dopamine levels in the brain, that would most certainly not decrease attention span or reaction time, it would in fact improve them, as can be seen when you take any dopaminergic drug. Higher dopamine doesn't hinder academic achievement, nor will it lower your IQ. That is ridiculous-- most of the mental benefits from cardiovascular exercise come from increased DA levels. Further, the effects of dopamine are not so sexually dimorphic in humans, the only real difference is that estrogen increases DA sensitivity. The archetypal drugs for increasing DA levels? Ritalin and Adderall.
These are low quality studies and an abomination of science to conclude that correlation = causation. Nothing is further from the truth! The main way toxoplasma is spread in humans is in eating undercooked meat. Considering the actual effects of dopamine on the brain, doesn't it seem more likely that perhaps a low IQ, low educational achievement, and risk taking/promiscuous behavior predispose one to eat or undercook meat? But even that is untested.
This study is wrong - all of us know that's not how it works!
The parasite makes men more attractive, more intelligent, and enables them to play strange futuristic instruments.On the other hand, if you do wish to dislodge it, all you have to do is tickle the pelvic splanchnic ganglion and get ready for the ride of your lives.
*Side effects can include massive bone loss.
How is this news? Parasitologists already know that toxoplasma gondii makes mice take more risks/act more stupid.
First thing I thought while reading the title was "hey great more Futurama news!"
this is old! we've already known about these aspects of t. gondii for years now. fucking wake up, you cat-loving schizos. at any rate, the only important question imho is "when can we start the kitty genocide?" yeah... suck it, zombies.
Likewise, cat-crap breath ;) Remember, cats will enjoy you being under a parasitic mind-control, but they just won't tell you that...
Get my wife a cat!
This sig only exists because you are observing it.
Someone tell me what's the happy part in this:
A dictator which the US created was today killed by a small part of the US and a small part of Iraq. More blood has been shed. American soldiers and Iraqi innocents continue to die and live a miserable life. A terrorist attack today killed 30, probably as a reaction to Saddam's hanging.
Really, what's the happy part?
If I am allergic to cats, does that mean that I do not have it?
I wonder if the non-allergenic cats tend not to have the parasite.
Is there an easy test for the parasite? Both for the human and the cat?
Why the fuck did you post this ? It's very well thought out and eloquently worded but this discussion is about a parasite that lives in cat shit. Keep your anti-Bush comments in conversations about politics. If you are too small minded to separate the two, please don't post. Thanks.
Or you could just play Soltar instead.
This is bullshit. There is very little to no legitimate scientific evidence that this parasite effects the brains of humans at all.
In the year 2007, a parasite is released into the earth's atmosphere rendering women more aggressive and men more dumb. The balance of power shifts and men become subservient to women. And when things can't seem to get any worse, the true intent of the parasite surfaces. (cue in action music)
KRYTEN: Lanstrom claims to have isolated several strains of positive virus: inspiration, charisma, sexual magnetism-- CAT: Sexual magnetism is a virus? Then get me to a hospital, I'm a terminal case!
I remember reading a few months ago that some reseachers had a found a higher incidence of schizophrenia among persons who, when small children, had had cats in their households, leading some to believe that Toxoplasmosis gondii may be a causal factor. Apparently, it is claimed that new research has confirmed this. This is of personal interest to me because my 14 year-old son was infected by Toxoplasmosis a couple years ago during a vist to Trinidad. Physicians suspect that the most likely source was my wife's aunt's home-made yogurt, which my kids love. My wife's aunt is an animal lover, and keeps numerous dogs and cats, as well as feeding hosts of wild birds that descend on the house every morning.
It was discovered after he complained about spots in his vision, and an opthalmological determined that there was a lesion on his retina which was flaking away. A blood test confirmed the presence of Toxoplasmosis gondii. Now he has to have an annual examination to ensure that the parasite is being kept under control by antibiotics, but it's always an extremely apprehensive time for us.
Well, that MIGHT be enough to keep Kirk away....
didnt know that about the antibiotic. wish i had known the last time i saw someone give up a cat because they were starting a family. Thanks for taking the time to mention it.
Somebody get me a brain slug. Stat!
Game... blouses.
Ever heard the song "The Girls All Look Better At Closing Time"?
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Anything else would be really gross, and would risk numerous other diseases.
Now that we have food out of the way, that leaves cats. Cat elimination would greatly reduce the risk to my family. I particularly wish to eliminate the neighborhood cats that poop in my vegetable garden, because that is where my kids and I dig in the dirt with our hands -- as gardeners are apt to do, and no it isn't reasonable to use gloves when planting seedlings.
Gardeners are at increased risk.
Fix: use a box trap, then call animal control to eliminate the cat for good. (obviously an unloved stray, because of course any responsible animal owner would keep their cat inside to protect it from cars and dogs and raccoons)
We finally have a scientific explantion for Blondes!
Paris Hilton?
I'd rather play Clamdigger.
There's a terrific book on parasites, including this one, called Parasite Rex". Of course, after reading it, I can't stop washing my hands, and washing, and washing ... there's *way* stranger stuff in nature than Heinlein, etc. every dreamed of :-)
I can't believe nobody's made the obvious and obligatory Futurama reference.
Tom Geller
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Christianofreak! Christianophobe!
Now the replies make sense too.
"Dr Boulter said the recent Czech Republic research was not conclusive"
So they decided to draw conclusions anyway.
The pursuit of absolute tolerance leads to the most rigorous and ludicrous intolerance. - REX MURPHY
...to explain stupid human pet tricks.
Human nature is quite adequate.
Maybe these researchers have seen too many Star Wars movies where the "midichlorians" (or however that's spelled) control everything through "The Force". When that concept first came out in Star Wars, I thought Lucas had totally lost it - it was brain dead.
OTOH, I've thought about Drexler's notion of embedding nanotech computers and robots into every cell of the human body. What would happen if you had trillions of human cells loaded up with distributed nanotech - or even femtotech or picotech - hardware that could monitor and totally control the human body and brain in realtime?
That would pretty much solve the God question.
So who says some advanced technocracy didn't do this to humans a hundred thousand years ago?
The Matrix could be real and you'd never know it. That was the point.
The real question this article raises: How can I can rid of this parasite in me - and load up the next HB I see with it? Can I spike her drink?
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
Oops ... that would be one of a set of one in my reply above... Stoopid rare steaks, shoulda fed 'em to the stoopid kat.
From http://www.cdc.gov/NCIDOD/dpd/parasites/toxoplasmo sis/factsht_toxoplasmosis.htm, "A Toxoplasma infection occurs by accidentally swallowing cat feces from a Toxoplasma-infected cat that is shedding the organism in its feces."
Call me old fashion, but I think if you are accidentally swallowing cat feces, you have bigger problems.
The article does not mention whether or not you can become infected by intentionally swallowing cat feces. Perhaps the author is assuming that if you swallow cat feces, it is always accidental. As reality shows become increasingly popular, the less confident I become in that assumption.
What bothers me is that the article in SMH doesn't indicate whether this effect is permanent.
This sig no verb.
Nothing turns me on like a the insane cat lady with 400+ cats running all over her house, crapping on everything. The only way to clean the house after one of them is to burn or demolish the house. The idea is so hot oh my god.
Does this 'parasite' happen to look like a black ooze?
DEAD DEAD DEAD DELETE ME
What'sa matter, too chicken to reply with your user_id? No one is fooled by you posting "Anonymous". Same stoopid writing style.
Here's an idea: don't post retarded shit you would be ashamed to stand by.
by The_Fire_Horse (552422) Alter Relationship on 2006-12-30 0:42 (#17407358) (http://slashdot.org/~The_Fire_Horse/journal | Last Journal: 2006-12-30 4:18)
Oh dear, what incredible ignorance.
Saddam was not a religious dictator, he was dictator. No religion involved.
Iraq was not "bound by that stupid koran rubbish". Saddam's government was secular, and the Koran is just as stupid as the Bible, no more, no less.
As for that bullet list...
We will "trial" you?
And of course, that list demonstrates the exact same kind of behaviour we condemn (forcing others to bow down to us, or else "we will kill you").
So, as I said.. incredible ignorance.
"say high to mohamed"... say "high"? are you?
"What's that? He isn't there"... hate to burst your bubble, but when you die, your God won't be there either.
Go back to school... better yet, read something other than freerepublic.com
Headline: Parasites Makes Us Dumber or Sexier. I'm going with "dumber".
This discussion is old news and a dupe, that makes it an open forum.
Would this parasite be similar to Midi-chlorians or those stomach worms that Phillip J. Fry had?
Knowing Google's lust for data collection, the Soviet Union is still alive and well inside the psyche of Sergey Brin....
Just wanted to interject that "The Extended Phenotype" by Richard Dawkins should be required reading for this sort of thing.
"An animal's behaviour tends to maximize the survival of the genes 'for' that behaviour, whether or not those genes happen to be in the body of the particular animal performing it."
My intellectual life is divided into pre-Dawkins and post-Dawkins eras. To anyone not already familiar with evolutionary biology, "The Selfish Gene", "The Extended Phenotype" and "The Blind Watchmaker" will completely change your worldview.
is why people are being so flippant about this. TFA says 33% of americans are infected, no? (well, that they were at one point. Given the nature of the disease, they must still be.)
That was a sampling of the population at 12 YOA. So the population as a whole is going to have a much higher infection rate. Let's suppose the rate of infection doesn't change till after 24 YOA..... a 24 year old american has a 56% chance of being, RIGHT NOW, infected by this parasite, and having their behaviour adversely modified by it. Including having their chances of being in a car crash increased by 3 or 4 times.
People don't seem to get this.... this mean *YOU*. So, supposing your more than 24 or so,
*YOU ARE PROBABLY INFECTED* Now go back over there and read that again.
And your chances of being so will go up, the older you get, of course.
You think you're less likely than the rest of the population to be? What, because you don't have a cat? Because you are reading a slashdot article about it? Because you can't remember ever eating undercooked meat? Well, how many people do? Some deli meats are never cooked, for example. Never tried those?
Even if you don't do things, you *still* stand a high chance of having it right now. Maybe your reluctance to accept the fact is your "reduced tendency to seek novelty" acting up again? People that do these "risky" things will still be a relatively small part of the population, and so a relatively small part of who is infected, the rest have to come from somewhere. People are consistently shown in studies to think of themselves as much less "average" than they are.
Okay, so the above mentioned "behaviour adversely modified by it" isn't for sure. But let's face it, how often do people test things on rats to see if it's dangerous, see it's not and think there's a good chance it's not a hazard for humans? Obviously this goes the other way, too, and this Toxoplasma significantly affects rats.
This clearly needs more study, and prefferably a cure CHOP CHOP! THAT MEANS NOW, STOP DRAGGIN' YER AS$. I don't suppose treating half the population with antibiotics would be a good idea. There's no real reason it can't be a major problem, and it most certainly looks like it is.
P.s.
You don't think it's "all that bad"? Well, that's up to loser you, but you think intelligence is just some magic thing that gives you good marks in school? Well, it's not, it's life. It affects all aspects of life, and what else does? Almost anything else will be influenced by it, and forcing even a small reduction of it onto someone is absolutely, completely unacceptable.
I would also point out that there's innumerable problems this whole "not me I'm special, I'm not at risk, I'd notice, it can't be that bad" BS has caused, lead (Pb) in the home, for one (which is probably much worse than this parasite). And then it goes the other way with things like GMOs?!. Mus be them parasites acting up again (hm, I could be onto something.... From now on we can refer to stupidity or aversion to new ideas as "the Toxo talkin'", or maybe somebody can think of something catchier). hm, sleeptime
I can see the stories now.
You are being MICROattacked, from various angles, in a SOFT manner.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Df_iGe_JSzI
Could be that people with the given properties are more likely to catch the eukaryte (or whatever). I seems to me that men who take risks are more likely to ingest cat excretions, and would be less attractive to women.
-- Make America hate again!
I just got infected! Look what they made me do. http://evilunitedairlines.blogspot.com/
It depends on why you think they invaded Iraq in the first place. Lets start with the original ones:
-Stop imminent danger to America from Weapons of mass distruction
-Bring peace and democracy to Iraq
-Get people who were involved with 9/11
Ok, so they're no good anymore, so what are they currently saying?
-Bring to justice a corrupt dictator
-Rebuild Iraq, hand over running to Iraquis and exit with dignity.
Ok, so apparently the first one is done, and the other looks a long way off. There's no basic services, and peace and self-sufficiency seem decades away. But there are some things that have been achieved. To the US taxpayer, or family member of those serving, it may not look like a victory. But for some people, the war is a massive success:
-Stopped Iraq from selling oil in Euros, rather than US$
-Demonstrate acceptance of American people for a pre-emptive, internationally condemmed war.
-Occupied countries and military bases on the western (Iraq) and Eastern (Afghanistan) borders of Iran
-Increased military spending
-Real life operations practice for US forces and test ground for new weapons technology
-Re-building and resource extraction contracts handed out to US firms.
The article mentions that there are drugs that can kill the parasite in rodents, and that it reverses the affects. There is no mention of the existence or lack of existence of a cure for humans. So... is it treatable?
EH? AH? What?
"Manchurian Candidate"?
Libertas in infinitum
Ok, so they're no good anymore, so what are they currently saying?
-Bring to justice a corrupt dictator
-Rebuild Iraq, hand over running to Iraquis and exit with dignity.
Ok, so apparently the first one is done, and the other looks a long way off.
If you replace "brought to justice" with "was executed very fast after only a single aspect of his dictatorship was slightly touched", then I agree.
Yet commandeering someone to kill 148 people was surely already forbidden in the old iraqi law. Why not take the old laws and sentence Saddam Hussein according to them? Why artificially create new laws and enact them retroactively? If you want to prove that someone is bad and does illegal things, then start with looking at the laws in place when the suspected crime was done. He was a dictator after all, I am pretty sure that he didn't care if his actions were backed by a fresh law overriding the old ones.
Getting the Shiites to cheer for Saddam Husseins execution was easy. They would also have cheered for him being executed for stealing candy. Getting the Sunnites to agree that he was a criminal is the hard part, and the way the process was done this chance was completely flundered. In the end Saddam Hussein was executed, but not brought to justice.
I don't think it's "justice" if you create new laws afterwards and then tell people that they have run afoul of them. I know that this is very en vogue after 9/11, and suddenly "helping or being trained as a terrorist" is a criminal act, and it's up to the government to define case by case, what that means.
What was until 2001 some kind of strange adventure vacation with some preaching, some training in a shooting range and lots of comraderie, completely has changed, and now you get indefinitely hold in detention without access to a lawyer, even though you might have been there decades ago and maybe even left soon after arrival because the camp looked too suspicious to you.
What was an act of charity to some social organisations in the land of your roots, where you still have family ties now is "financing international terrorism" and also gets you in jail, even though you only wanted to help the creation of an elementary school in the village of your ancestors. And again it may be that it also puts you in jail retroactively for money you spend years ago.
There's no basic services, and peace and self-sufficiency seem decades away. But there are some things that have been achieved. To the US taxpayer, or family member of those serving, it may not look like a victory. But for some people, the war is a massive success:
-Stopped Iraq from selling oil in Euros, rather than US$
-Demonstrate acceptance of American people for a pre-emptive, internationally condemmed war.
-Occupied countries and military bases on the western (Iraq) and Eastern (Afghanistan) borders of Iran
-Increased military spending
-Real life operations practice for US forces and test ground for new weapons technology
-Re-building and resource extraction contracts handed out to US firms.
As far as I see stopping Iraq selling oil for Euros (which Iraq only announced and never did) didn't help the U.S. dollar if you just look at the exchange ratios. From the heydays of 2002, when the Euro traded for about 0.90 US$ we have a steep decline to today's ~1.30 US$. The whole US economy was devalued 30% during the last five years. To offset that you would need a yearly gross economy growth of about 6%, but the US economy achieved a maximum of about 4%. Calculated in Euros the US economy shrunk 2% a year.
Basicly what you are saying is that spending half a trillion of US$ a year to a very small part of the U.S. economy and the U.S. people is somehow a success. If you happen to be involved with either the companies or the people, I could agree. But wouldn't it be much more effective and cheaper if the money doesn't need to be laundered by a war but be sent directly? Ju
The execution is over the small, early stuff because it doesn't involve any western governments like his later crimes did.
Uncle Sam says:
Apart from:
-Invading the country
-Deploying hundreds of thousands of troops
-Installing a government
-Picking the court
Apart from that - We weren't involved! The Iraquis were responsible for all of this trial!
But wouldn't it be much more effective and cheaper if the money doesn't need to be laundered by a war but be sent directly? Just sent US$ 1500 each year to each citizen of the U.S.
This was mentioned in 1984, building and destroying military objects and digging and filling in holes have the same net outcome (ie make-work, no value) but one is so much easier to sell the population on.
It's how you sell the idea:
Will you vote to give money to rich corporations on a stupid war? -> No
Do you think we should pay American business top dollar to provide the best for our fighting troops? -> Yup.
Yes I agree the American economy, I am very very bearish on the economy overall. However, most people feel good about it, happy that their houses are worth lots of money, and their stocks are worth lots of money, everything is at a record high. But what if the way you keep score on things keeps losing its value? You feel rich... you vote incumbent... the fiscal liquidity tap keeps running...
The US could probably do a lot of damage to Iran by bombing it with aircraft and just trying to destroy things, but not do any kind of holding of ground whatsoever. They have infinite money (as much as they can print and hope the rest fo the world believes in) and could just sit back and use high-tech to destroy things. They suck at holding things, and winning the trust of the locals.
While the whole debacle is obviously bad for the economy overall, it does make some people a lot of money. Sure the deficits up, but their government contract is increased. The dollar is down 30% relative to other currencies but I've quadrupled my money so even in real terms, I'm still WAAAY up.
It's been known for serveral years; I do not see what was the discovery?
Someone even said that toxoplasmosis makes woman a perfect real estate agent; while turns male into testosterone-driven thug.