Scientists Discover a Virus That Changes the Brain To "Make Humans More Stupid"

concertina226 writes that researchers have found a virus that appears to reduce people’s thinking power and attention span. "Scientists at the Johns Hopkins Medical School and the University of Nebraska have discovered an algae virus that makes us more stupid by infecting our brains. The researchers were conducting a completely unrelated study into throat microbes when they realized that DNA in the throats of healthy people matched the DNA of a chlorovirus virus known as ATCV-1. ATCV-1 is a virus that infects the green algae found in freshwater lakes and ponds. It had previously been thought to be non-infectious to humans, but the scientists found that it actually affects cognitive functions in the brain by shortening attention span and causing a decrease in spatial awareness. For the first time ever, the researchers proved that microorganisms have the ability to trigger delicate physiological changes to the human body, without launching a full-blown attack on the human immune system."

Comments

Virus Name

[Anonymous Coward]

Fox News

Re:Virus Name

[ArcadeMan]

I think a comment rating of "Redundant" is even funnier in this case.

Re:Virus Name

[The Ickle Jones]

Can we just agree that all the news stations are incredibly retarded?

Re:Virus Name

[Anonymous Coward]

The Palin Syndrome

a.k.a "The Palindrome" :)

Re:Virus Name

[The Ickle Jones]

Why isn't it true? From what I've seen, they all offer their own flavor of propaganda, fluff pieces, and a pro-mass-surveillance (though they occasionally put on someone who is slightly opposed to it) agenda.

Re:Virus Name

[alex67500]

In Europe, football has replaced religion for that particular matter...

Re:Virus Name

[asylumx]

The "MSNBC" virus was found to be much less infectious because the majority of the population is not exposed to it.

Re:Virus Name

[dywolf]

Which one peddles lies about death panels, calls scientists liars, has a psychatrist who diagnoses the President on air, and says slavery and jim crow werent so bad?

Re:Virus Name

[dywolf]

See? That's what we call Projection which is a form of denial of reality.

Re:Virus Name

[MightyMartian]

Quit projecting, mate. It's no one else's fault that you're too scared to leave your parents' basement.

Re:Virus Name

[PraiseBob]

People who watch no news of any kind, are more informed about current events than viewers of Fox News. For sure you can expect certain kinds of distortion for left and right wing biases from every station, but Fox News takes viewers several steps beyond political slant, to full on fabrications that suit their storyline.

Re:Virus Name

[sudon't]

It's well known that Fox is the worst source of TV news in the US, but the others aren't great either. Even with NPR, which always tops the survey you're thinking of, (in terms of listeners being better informed), you still have to be able to read between the lines a bit. There's also a bit of self-selection going on in that NPR listeners tend to already be better educated than consumers of television news. And there's a lot of news that even NPR doesn't cover - although by carrying the BBC, some of those gaps are filled in. But educated people are more likely to get their news from many sources.

People who get all their news from television are not going to be well-informed, whatever the station. Fox is a different animal altogether.

Re:Virus Name

[geekoid]

Fox is objectively worse then MSNBC, or any other news show.
There is a reason it can't be called News in Canada. Why Rupert change what the show is depending on the court case. Sometime sit's news, and sometime sit's entertainment.

Which isn't to say MSNBC can't be better.
AS far a political reporting goes, NPR is the best.
Yeah, yeah, someone is going to scream liberal, but I have been paying attention to the questions they ask any politician, and the difficulty of the question is the same for any politician.

Re:Virus Name

[AaronLS]

They've done this study twice a few years apart. Ask people non-objective questions that have factual answers, then find out which stations they watch. Perhaps a false correlation, but it is a pretty strong indicator. Maybe stupid people are drawn to Fox, and it's not Fox that's misinforming them?

http://news-beta.slashdot.org/...

Re:Virus Name

[zeroryoko1974]

Yeah, that Fox News anchor Dan Rather who fabricated that story about Bush was a terrible guy. Oh wait, he was on CBS

Re:Virus Name

[AK Marc]

Yes, they are true. We've had them for a very long time. The problem was that the Republicans liked the death panels that were for-profit and benefited from killing you, the ones run by the government weren't paid to kill the poor and undesirables, to they were labeled "bad".

Or have you never heard of the HMOs that denied treatment, resulting in the death of a person? Good thing we limited the liability of the private death panels to the value of the treatment denied.

Hack it!

[Anonymous Coward]

Change the payload to make it make us smarter, or cure diseases of the brain. Similar to what they've done with HIV.

Virus Name

[stinkydog]

That is an insult to Pond Scum everywhere.

SD

First time?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

For the first time ever, the researchers proved that microorganisms have the ability to trigger delicate physiological changes to the human body, without launching a full-blown attack on the human immune system.

The first? What about Toxoplasma gondii ?

Re:First time?

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Cat ownership is actually just a minor factor - the feces of an infected cat are infectious only after a certain period of time, and cleaning the litter once a day removes the cysts before they get any chance to infect anyone. Furthermore, there's only a limited period during which a cat can excrete infectious feces, only a few weeks of its entire life. So the combined probability of your cat getting infected, excreting infectious feces, those feces staying in the litter, and you getting infected is really, really small.

Anyway, I was referring to mental processes being altered by microorganisms that don't get significant immune response, which is what this discovery seems to be about. If you read it again, it wasn't specifically about people being "made stupid".

Re:First time?

[Will.Woodhull]

That doesn't explain the high prevalence of toxo antibodies in some human populations. CDC estimates about 20% of the USA population has been affected by toxo at some time in their life. Toxo is a very prevalent parasite, suggesting that its modes of transmission are a lot more effective than parent post implies.

There is anecdotal evidence that women who choose to live with multiple cats are often polyamorous or blatantly promiscuous, take risks with social norms that lead to frequent loss of jobs, and are exceptionally tolerant of the stench of cat piss. Rats that have been infected with toxo have been shown to become more daring than the average rat, and to be attracted to the odor of cat piss.

Re:First time?

[Will.Woodhull]

If you live with a woman who has lots of cats and some of the indicators of toxo, then-- because she is likely to be a risk taker-- you are at risk of becoming infected. This is true whether you are husband, lover, child, or room mate. This is because she is a risk taker, and will take risks with how she handles food, kitchen implements, etc that will increase your risk.

The risk of getting toxo cannot be controlled by you exercising good hygeinic practices. It also depends on everyone around you who handles cats to also exercise good hygeine. But those with toxo are the ones who will stretch the "5 second rule" to "less than a minute". And then comfortably serve you the canape that was just rescued from the floor next to the cat's litter box.

Not all cat owners are dangerous to your health. But those who have multiple cats and don't mind living in a house with a permanent faint odor of cat piss maybe should be regarded as dangerous.

BTW, I don't know for sure whether this is a gender-specific thing and I may be doing a bad in implying that this is a women's issue kind of thing. Anecdotally it seems that way, and the research seems to suggest that men are not as susceptible to toxo induced behavioral problems as are women. But I don't know that for sure.

Re:First time?

[Udom]

Humans infected with Toxoplasma gondii are more prone to risk taking, apparently having more car accidents, for example. Infected mice lose all fear of predators and will happily walk right up to a cat. It was thought that humans could only be infected by contact with cat feces, but thousands were exposed in Victoria BC through a contaminated water supply. Untested so far is the legal culpability of someone who carries the parasite if they are accused of a crime.

Re:First time?

[geekoid]

I've never seen a cat lady I'd want to sleep with.

Real article is here

[__aaltlg1547]

http://www.pnas.org/content/ea...

It explains that they measured the cognitive differences between infected and non-infected people, and how, which wasn't addressed in the clickbait summary.

Re:Real article is here

[RDW]

Rather an odd study. Viral DNA apparently present in nearly half the subjects. They went straight to a mouse model before attempting to confirm the (small) effect in a larger, independent human cohort. No evidence that the virus actually infects mammalian cells, which would be an extremely unusual host range (the only precedent of anything similar they could find to cite is in an obscure Ukrainian journal). I'd say 'more research is needed', but maybe that's just the virus talking.

Re:Real article is here

[neoritter]

*whispers* pay no mind to the man behind the mucous curtain...there's no virus making you stupid...yessssssss....

So...

[king neckbeard]

It looks like stupidity may be contagious after all.

it all makes sense now...

[Karmashock]

this explains why I need to stay in my hazmat bubble.

you can catch it over the internet

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you can catch it from facebook.

Yesterday

[Rashdot]

Yesterday I went swimming in a pond but now I can't fin.. Oh look, a tweet.

That explains a lot ...

[CaptainDork]

... it must be something in the water.

Re:Old News

[ArcadeMan]

It also explains why this news appeared on Slashdot one week late.

Re: All well and good, but...

[gurps_npc]

Where exactly does the water for the Capital building (Congress) come from? Has anyone checked into this?

In related news

[Anonymous Coward]

...said virus was found to thrive in the american political system, notably congress.

Nothing to see here, move along

[plopez]

Seriously, this being slashdot everyone is going to use an article like this to insult anyone who disagrees with them and make stupid jokes about politicians, CEOs, various religious groups etc. Don't waste your time here.

Quarantine

[PopeRatzo]

Has anyone thought of submitting 8chan/gg for testing?

I'm pretty sure we have a hotspot developing over there.

The real story

[penguinoid]

"found that it actually affects cognitive functions in the brain by shortening attention span" ... in Americans. So the real story is that they discovered negative attention sp

Re: All well and good, but...

[oldmac31310]

It is not from an animal.

Sciencephobia

[Baldrson]

And in other news, the virus purportedly renders people unable to think rationally about epidemiology. Scientists are baffled as to why a virus would do such a thing, although they professed a mysterious urge to share bodily fluids with those around them and denounce as "sciencephobic" those who shunned their advances.

Re:At last: an explanation!

[geekoid]

Well, it's a bit more then that.
MIllion is, techncally correct in that it's more then 1 million. But it very few show that break 2 million viewer. And many of those viewers are the saem ones that watch other reality shows.

Reality shows are cheap. This is why you have a lot of them, you need very few viewers to make a profit.

More people watched the lowest rated episode of the Beverly hillbillys then watched the highest rated reality TV.

"s have a lower intellect"
Why would it be lower, as opposed to the same?

Re:Chemtrails anyone?

[geekoid]

only if 'on to something' means 'ignorant of even the most basic science', then yes.