Clippy 9000: Yeah! So, will you do a little thing for me? It's something special!
Bobby: Okay!
Clippy 9000: Good! I want you to go to the kitchen and get a big carving knife, but walk quietly so you don't wake up Mommy and Daddy! Now go get it!
Bobby: Okay!
Bobby: I got it!
Clippy 9000: Good boy! Now we're going to play a game! I want you to tiptoe into Mommy and Daddy's bedroom and plunge that knife into them a lot of times because they're been very very bad and must be punished! It's a game with a surprise ending! Now do it fast and don't stop! Ha ha!
As for Activia, the company does not claim that it reduces the risk of specific medical conditions like constipation. Rather, Dannon says, it "can help regulate your digestive system by helping reduce long intestinal transit time."
I believe we used to refer to that as diarrhea. Activia should have a warning label: "Do not consume before long staff meetings! (Unless you're into that sort of thing.) And please, for the love of god, do not eat and fly. Thank You, The Other Passengers."
Speaking of paid attempts, this could make Microsoft astroturfing more visible. Which is a good thing. I wonder how many fake blogs they have sponsored to achieve their (non) regulatory needs?
I expect that for security reasons TSA will ban exploding capacitors from motherboards, iPods, cell phones, shoes, and Japanese anal probes. Not that I know anything about the last category... It's only a rumor I heard. A rumor.
I agree that using Wikipedia opens up the knowledge base to strategic contamination. Any party with a vested interest could alter certain information and bias AIs using it. That is why I think the Israeli approach cited will run into problems.
In my own research I've looked at the problem of AI knowledgebase contamination and know that unless a truth validation system is employed, it is all too easy to condemn the poor AI to reasoning with flawed data. And it's very difficult to design a good validation mechanism. Can you use 'common' knowledge and opinion to check against? Well, the masses aren't always right. There are a lot of falsehoods floating around the Internet. Collecting a pool of information from various sources requires effort to cross-check and evaluate.
Of course humans face the same problem, and a lot of people reason with incomplete, incorrect, invalid data. Which might explain why the dollar is dropping versus the Euro.:)
Undoubtedly the plot of the fourth Indiana Jones movie.
"Doctor Jones? We'd like you to find the lost macguffin of death that kills anything with DNA before the Nazis find it. Oh, and the French Dr. Sneeringfart, your longterm rival, is already on the trail."
A few scenes from the movie:
Dr S: "Fine wine - too bad you won't live to enjoy it, Jones!"
Indy: "Snakes on a plane? Why does it always have to be snakes on a plane!?"
Indy: "There was an ancient legend that the Aztecs put this in the cocoa of their enemies. DNA incompatible with human life! It's like a bad dream of science!"
Explorer babe: "Oh, Indy, ignore that tiny bottle of deadly DNA and pay some attention to MY DNA!!"
Er, I expect the title will be, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Lost Biowarfare.
In the original 1950s version of the film, it was apparent how much the people had reason to fear the ever-present surveillance from omnipresent monitoring cameras. And similarly in the book.
I am appalled. If people cannot see the utter wrongness of allowing pieces of a totalitarian state being put into place, maybe America deserves its fate as a nation of television-watching consumers who have relinquished freedom because they are lazy. But thank you, I'll not be one of the braindead frogs who are paddling around in the pot whose temperature is being raised slowly but surely to the cooking point.
There is no difference between cameras monitoring what you do in public and people watching you other than the quality of the record.
Oh no no no. Major differences. A record of you from a camera can endure forever and come back to be used for whatever purposes the watchers wish. If those watchers mean to use records for purposes of control, it is far different from a fleeting glance by a passerby. I guess people have no sense of history anymore. No understanding of how things go wrong. I find this blindness and unconcern vastly worrisome.
@Dave.
I do not mean this with disrespect for you. But when you say
"The law defines who is a criminal. A criminal is one who breaks the law. The government and the people make the laws. If you don't like the laws, change the laws and/or the government. We are a nation of laws, not men.
that is an innocent view of reality. The reality is that the law is malleable in the hands of those who wish it to be, an who have enough money and influence to get their way. If the GOP ruled Congress today, and they wished to declare it illegal to blow your nose in public, there is very little you do to protest and stop it. The last 6 years have shown this, via such travesties as the Patriot Act. In these times, rule of law has been perverted to rule by checkbook for whichever lobbyist or PAC can buy the most representation. In a time when electronic voting has been subverted by hidden code that has been found to be biased, the concept of changing the government has been perverted from clean ideals. So I'm sorry, what you say is ideal but not real in these times.
Have you ever read the book 1984, or seen either of the film versions? Should a totalitarian regime slip in, not that there's any chance of that here, it would use that mass surveillance system to keep itself in power. Of course, we don't have to worry about that happening, as there is zero probability that the US government would tap our phones, read our email, open our physical mail, put us in a surveillance database with no recourse for handling errors that prevent us from travelling, or confuse us with someone else and put us in prison without trial. Use of public cameras to identify criminals brings up the question of who defines criminal, and who guards the guardians? Liberty is something precious and not be handed over without question to criminal politicians or neonazis.
Don't worry; Indy will defeat them using a wooden laptop running Linux, and shut down their starship. Oh wait. There appears to have been something in my morning coffee. The colors... the colors! Like wow!
It's an honor to be labeled 'smug' by someone who arrogantly labeled me a 'troll' in the earlier post that started this. Labeling is a time-tested way to improve the quality of one's arguments, I imagine.
Toxoplasmosis has only begun to be understood a little in the last five years. Researchers are finding out disquieting things about it that I believe show it is not the insignificant risk you believe, nor as treatable. Damage to the brain is not insignificant.
To begin, a New York Times article of June 20, 2006 (archive access requires payment though) mentions "Researchers in Sweden report that the parasite fans out through the body by manipulating mobile cells that are part of the immune system. Toxoplasma hijacks these so-called dendritic cells and makes them race around the body and ignore commands from other immune cells to commit suicide. The dendritic cells sneak the parasites into the brain and other organs, acting much like a Trojan horse." I have not yet found publication source for the Swedish results but assume I will eventually.
This shows the immune system is not as effective against the parasite as you maintain. 50 million Americans are estimated to have toxoplasmosis to one degree or another. There is hardly insignificant risk if the numbers are that large. Do all of them eat uncooked meat? I don't think so. Therefore the cat vector is worth more attention.
It is clear you picked and chose results to support your conclusions. Because the AIDS study site you quoted contains conflicting results. The quoted,"Wallace found that Toxoplasma IgG antibody positivity did not correlate with cat ownership." becomes meaningless if the parasite disrupts normal immune function, which would hamper antibody formation. The parasite hiding within dendritic cells would block antibody formation. Hence lack of correlation with cat ownership is not proven. This is supported by results quoted in the same article:"Porter and Sande report that the absence of detectable anti-toxoplasma IgG antibodies does not exclude the diagnosis. In their retrospectively reviewed series, 4/18 patients with pathologically proved toxoplasmosis did not have detectable antitoxoplasma antibodies." So how many of the 4 got it from cat contact? Not shown. And Wallace not solid.
You say "What this *does* show is that certain drug treatments have been successful in attacking brain cysts and significantly reducing their number" but that is not correct. There is a difference between certain drug treatments reducing parasites in the general body, leading to fewer spreading to the brain, versus combination drugs reducing the parasite directly in the brain. The Godolfsky results quotes are interesting, but are for one patient only, and the reported "cerebellar lesions had almost completely resolved by six weeks" is misleading since the brain does not repair lesions as such, the key is what is meant by resolved. Perhaps scar tissue. The paper does not support your extracted conclusion that the drugs combos attack brain-sited parasites, merely that they attack them in the body before spreading. And "decreased brain cyst burdens compared with no treatment" merely says that if you don't treat it, it spreads to the brain. It does not say the combined regimen acts within in the brain. I trust this distinction is clear? The AIDS site research all refers to maintainance therapy, which acts to kill parasites in the body leading to fewer getting to the brain, but does not describe therapy used to kill in the brain itself.
"your assumption that those tachyzoites remain in the brain and inaccessible to blood flow and the immune system is flawed, IMO)
You do not understand how substances and objects are filtered at the boundaries to the brain nor how the immune system works. The IMO is just not correct. I pointed out that reading about meningitis would make this clear. Don't assume understanding of computer technology conveys authority in reasoning in a different field in which one has no background beyond reading a few papers, and misinterpreting them, and insulting people who disagree with you. You refer to 'winnable'. Is this football then, or science?
Claiming one's heard an argument over and over doesn't prove the argument is invalid. And so I note yet again that stating one should only address the vectors of greatest risk and ignore others of lesser probability is an economic assessment, not a full analysis taking all aspects into account. Like an HMO approach to maximizing profits. While I don't care what fools choose for themselves, I have the right to set my own level of cut-off for risk assessment to a value that helps my survival by minimizing risks. I choose not to eat uncooked meat AND avoid cat-risk.
"Decades of medical research have shown this to be an effective tool against the spread of disease. Addressing the most likely transmission vectors is simply logical.
Not entirely. The hidden assumption here is that it is an economics-based assessment only, cost of dealing with the risk. That's only a partial, and false, analysis then. A business analysis. There is nothing wrong with addressing the most likely risks, as long as one does not throw out the lesser risks. And that is my point. Do not throw them out.
"Fine. But studies of this particular parasite, with its particular life cycle, have shown that the immune system functions as I have described it."
No, the immune system only functions as you describe for the parts outside the brain. Meaning that an infection that has reached the brain resides there for a possibly long time. Your model is flawed because it does not allow for this. And it is very important. Because the hidden cost of a brain infection is far higher than the risk/cost you have assigned to it.
"however treatment methods are available, as I mentioned."
And as I said and will repeat as needed, they are not effective for the brain. I'm not sure which part of that isn't believed. However, I'm patient and kindly, and will be glad to explain it again as needed, and next time with references to immunology, and the time after that, too... Discussions of meningitis will clarify the issue. I hope I do not have to go into laborious detail, unless necessary.
Say, didn't the article say "Infected men... are also more likely to break rules and take risks, be more independent, more anti-social, suspicious, jealous and morose." Not that that has any bearing on responses in this thread. But let me offer everyone some pyrimethamine with this morning's coffee. Bon appetit.
My point was your claim was that undercooked meat was far more important, so ignore cats. That viewpoint is illogical. A threat is still a threat even if a more common threat exists. "It all comes down to probability." Please do not apply financial industry reasoning about monetary risk to medical situations, that's not entirely valid.
Your comment: "However, the immune system attacks these tachyzoites, eliminating most of them before they can become cysts."
That is an invalid model. The immune system does not function as effectively in all parts of the body. The question is how effective the immune system is in the brain. The blood-brain barrier prevents molecules from entering the brain that are injurious to neurons. This can include antiparasitic drugs as well as regular immune system components. The immune system chemical signalling system does not work as effectively because the brain protects against some of its components. Thus it is not reasonable to assume that the immune system can detect or attack tachyzoites within the brain. Indeed in AIDS patients apparently they are more likely to spread. I suspect that even in more commonly immune-weakened patients in the general population, for example having severe flu, that the parasite enjoys growth.
I've seen these arguments before. Mostly from people who have some irrational dislike of cats. I can't say I really get it. But to each his own. Just so long as they don't try to shove their odd view on the rest of us, I don't give a damn.
Indeed. Yes, saying 'I've seen it all before and it doesn't agree with my worldview, and people who disagree must be cat-hating weirdos' makes for an effective argument. But hopefully the ones with the odd view might end up living longer and healthier than the smug ones.
It is invalid logic to reason that the risk is greater from eating raw steak than from handling a cat, so that handling cats is not of concern. Both are of concern.
I'm sure it makes great common sense to trust Wiki medical notes as always being absolutely correct, accurate, and true, since the Wikipedia has such rigorous tests for truth validity of submitted material.
1) But aside from that, it's known that for two weeks after infection, cats CAN transmit the parasite in their feces and CAN carry the parasite externally on their fur through contamination with the feces. Hence there is a genuine risk period for physical touch. Now the problem is, when, ever, is that two week period? You can never know. Hence there is always a probability of risk from a cat. I repeat again, children are at risk from handling the animals, as they are far likelier to put fingers in their mouths. People are cautioned to avoid even breathing dust from cat boxes.
2) I stand behind what I said about having the parasite's cysts in the brain being not generally a really great idea. a) parasite causes brain lesions. NOT healable. I don't care about post-infection treatment, that's locking the barn door after the horse is out. b) I've read a research paper saying the immune system can't effectively get to the parasite in the brain.
3) the Wiki quotes use the weasel word "seems' quite a bit in regards to treatment. I think I'll stick to preferring 'certain' to 'seems to' when considering medical opinion.
4) Papers indicate that the human immune system keeps the parasite 'under control' but do not say that it eliminates the parasite completely. So what happens to a person when the immune system is weakened by a bad case of the flu or anything else? Do infected people see a flareup of the parasite, but never realize that is going on?
5) Research finds that the parasite alters behavior in mice, i.e. brain function, and makes me wonder considerably about effects in humans. If it affects aggression in males, and is estimated to affect 10 to 20% of people in North America alone... it's hardly insignificant to be concerned.
Unfortunately it's true. What happens is, cats can carry the parasite on their fur from contact with feces, then brush up or rub against something you touch. Example, cat wipes its parasites off on your couch. You sit down unaware it did that. Your hand touches the couch, picks up some very small toxoplasmosis eggs; you sit there watching TV, eating popcorn, not having washed your hands. You've been pwned by the parasite. Worse, very worse, is that small children can get it by touching the cute kitty then sticking their fingers in their mouth. Cats are a big vector for this.
I believe that antiparasitic drugs can't cross the blood-brain barrier and kill the parasites in your brain, only in other parts of the body. So you can get this creepy parasite and be stuck for life with it breeding inside your brain. This is why I just don't put up with cats in the household. The risk is too high, the reward too small.
And finally, if I wanted a brain parasite sucking out my intelligence, I'd learn.NET programming.
We of the planet Snogron do not find this funny. We based our entire civilization upon the use of these atomic variants, and up until the day a high schooler found out how to spontaneously detonate them using a tuning fork and a QonyPilgstation3, we were doing all right. But now the survivors of our fractured planet have spread across the universe to warn others. Do not meddle where the Almighty Spaghetti Monster cautions you not to tread! Physics is not for the foolhardy, the unwise, or people who live in Crawford, Texas! Or all three.
"Harry," said Dumbledore, "we frown upon sex with younger students, especially freshmen boys. You see, this is why we have female goblins and elves around here."
"I don't quite understand, Sir," said Harry.
Dumbledore took him by the shoulder. "Ah, Harry, that's what I like about you. Sometimes you're thick as a brick. Which allows us to keep the series going for so many books."
Hermione interrupted. "*I* understand, Sir."
"And I've been meaning to speak to you, Hermione. About those candles, broomsticks, and bowling pins the housekeepers report littering your bedchamber..."
---- sometimes, you just DON'T want to see the parts Rowling edited out of the draft manuscripts...
Oh, pfui! ANYONE can do open source etching lasers. But can they do open source breast implants, I have to ask. (banging my head on the desk in frustration.)
I am not a neuroscientist, but I play one on TV. And I want to introduce my new, patent-pending, Electron Deodorant. Ladies, if your electrons stink like a two-week trout from New Jersey, you need ED! Men, if your pits kill hungry dogs at 45 feet, you need ED! Guaranteed to stop quantum entanglement for up to 24 hours or DOUBLE your filthy money back. Not sold under GPL. Recommended by noted physicists Oprah Winfrey and Richard Simmons, and Darl McBride, winner of the Guinness Book of Records Prize in Legal Maneuvering.
Slashdot Mirror
Bobby: Hi!
Clippy 9000: You know we're great friends, right?
Bobby: Sure!
Clippy 9000: Yeah! So, will you do a little thing for me? It's something special!
Bobby: Okay!
Clippy 9000: Good! I want you to go to the kitchen and get a big carving knife, but walk quietly so you don't wake up Mommy and Daddy! Now go get it!
Bobby: Okay!
Bobby: I got it!
Clippy 9000: Good boy! Now we're going to play a game! I want you to tiptoe into Mommy and Daddy's bedroom and plunge that knife into them a lot of times because they're been very very bad and must be punished! It's a game with a surprise ending! Now do it fast and don't stop! Ha ha!
Bobby: Okay! Ha ha!
As for Activia, the company does not claim that it reduces the risk of specific medical conditions like constipation. Rather, Dannon says, it "can help regulate your digestive system by helping reduce long intestinal transit time."
I believe we used to refer to that as diarrhea. Activia should have a warning label: "Do not consume before long staff meetings! (Unless you're into that sort of thing.) And please, for the love of god, do not eat and fly. Thank You, The Other Passengers."
Speaking of paid attempts, this could make Microsoft astroturfing more visible. Which is a good thing. I wonder how many fake blogs they have sponsored to achieve their (non) regulatory needs?
As soon as HP hears about this, we'll have $15,000 Housejet cartridges.
OMG. Ponies.
Please, just shoot me now.
I expect that for security reasons TSA will ban exploding capacitors from motherboards, iPods, cell phones, shoes, and Japanese anal probes. Not that I know anything about the last category... It's only a rumor I heard. A rumor.
In my own research I've looked at the problem of AI knowledgebase contamination and know that unless a truth validation system is employed, it is all too easy to condemn the poor AI to reasoning with flawed data. And it's very difficult to design a good validation mechanism. Can you use 'common' knowledge and opinion to check against? Well, the masses aren't always right. There are a lot of falsehoods floating around the Internet. Collecting a pool of information from various sources requires effort to cross-check and evaluate.
Of course humans face the same problem, and a lot of people reason with incomplete, incorrect, invalid data. Which might explain why the dollar is dropping versus the Euro. :)
Rest in peace, Momofuku-san.
Your son,
Walt
"Doctor Jones? We'd like you to find the lost macguffin of death that kills anything with DNA before the Nazis find it. Oh, and the French Dr. Sneeringfart, your longterm rival, is already on the trail."
A few scenes from the movie:
Dr S: "Fine wine - too bad you won't live to enjoy it, Jones!"
Indy: "Snakes on a plane? Why does it always have to be snakes on a plane!?"
Indy: "There was an ancient legend that the Aztecs put this in the cocoa of their enemies. DNA incompatible with human life! It's like a bad dream of science!"
Explorer babe: "Oh, Indy, ignore that tiny bottle of deadly DNA and pay some attention to MY DNA!!"
Er, I expect the title will be, Indiana Jones and the Temple of Lost Biowarfare.
I am appalled. If people cannot see the utter wrongness of allowing pieces of a totalitarian state being put into place, maybe America deserves its fate as a nation of television-watching consumers who have relinquished freedom because they are lazy. But thank you, I'll not be one of the braindead frogs who are paddling around in the pot whose temperature is being raised slowly but surely to the cooking point.
There is no difference between cameras monitoring what you do in public and people watching you other than the quality of the record.
Oh no no no. Major differences. A record of you from a camera can endure forever and come back to be used for whatever purposes the watchers wish. If those watchers mean to use records for purposes of control, it is far different from a fleeting glance by a passerby. I guess people have no sense of history anymore. No understanding of how things go wrong. I find this blindness and unconcern vastly worrisome.
"The law defines who is a criminal. A criminal is one who breaks the law. The government and the people make the laws. If you don't like the laws, change the laws and/or the government. We are a nation of laws, not men.
that is an innocent view of reality. The reality is that the law is malleable in the hands of those who wish it to be, an who have enough money and influence to get their way. If the GOP ruled Congress today, and they wished to declare it illegal to blow your nose in public, there is very little you do to protest and stop it. The last 6 years have shown this, via such travesties as the Patriot Act. In these times, rule of law has been perverted to rule by checkbook for whichever lobbyist or PAC can buy the most representation. In a time when electronic voting has been subverted by hidden code that has been found to be biased, the concept of changing the government has been perverted from clean ideals. So I'm sorry, what you say is ideal but not real in these times.
Have you ever read the book 1984, or seen either of the film versions? Should a totalitarian regime slip in, not that there's any chance of that here, it would use that mass surveillance system to keep itself in power. Of course, we don't have to worry about that happening, as there is zero probability that the US government would tap our phones, read our email, open our physical mail, put us in a surveillance database with no recourse for handling errors that prevent us from travelling, or confuse us with someone else and put us in prison without trial. Use of public cameras to identify criminals brings up the question of who defines criminal, and who guards the guardians? Liberty is something precious and not be handed over without question to criminal politicians or neonazis.
Don't worry; Indy will defeat them using a wooden laptop running Linux, and shut down their starship. Oh wait. There appears to have been something in my morning coffee. The colors... the colors! Like wow!
Toxoplasmosis has only begun to be understood a little in the last five years. Researchers are finding out disquieting things about it that I believe show it is not the insignificant risk you believe, nor as treatable. Damage to the brain is not insignificant.
To begin, a New York Times article of June 20, 2006 (archive access requires payment though) mentions "Researchers in Sweden report that the parasite fans out through the body by manipulating mobile cells that are part of the immune system. Toxoplasma hijacks these so-called dendritic cells and makes them race around the body and ignore commands from other immune cells to commit suicide. The dendritic cells sneak the parasites into the brain and other organs, acting much like a Trojan horse." I have not yet found publication source for the Swedish results but assume I will eventually.
This shows the immune system is not as effective against the parasite as you maintain. 50 million Americans are estimated to have toxoplasmosis to one degree or another. There is hardly insignificant risk if the numbers are that large. Do all of them eat uncooked meat? I don't think so. Therefore the cat vector is worth more attention.
It is clear you picked and chose results to support your conclusions. Because the AIDS study site you quoted contains conflicting results. The quoted,"Wallace found that Toxoplasma IgG antibody positivity did not correlate with cat ownership." becomes meaningless if the parasite disrupts normal immune function, which would hamper antibody formation. The parasite hiding within dendritic cells would block antibody formation. Hence lack of correlation with cat ownership is not proven. This is supported by results quoted in the same article:"Porter and Sande report that the absence of detectable anti-toxoplasma IgG antibodies does not exclude the diagnosis. In their retrospectively reviewed series, 4/18 patients with pathologically proved toxoplasmosis did not have detectable antitoxoplasma antibodies." So how many of the 4 got it from cat contact? Not shown. And Wallace not solid.
You say "What this *does* show is that certain drug treatments have been successful in attacking brain cysts and significantly reducing their number" but that is not correct. There is a difference between certain drug treatments reducing parasites in the general body, leading to fewer spreading to the brain, versus combination drugs reducing the parasite directly in the brain. The Godolfsky results quotes are interesting, but are for one patient only, and the reported "cerebellar lesions had almost completely resolved by six weeks" is misleading since the brain does not repair lesions as such, the key is what is meant by resolved. Perhaps scar tissue. The paper does not support your extracted conclusion that the drugs combos attack brain-sited parasites, merely that they attack them in the body before spreading. And "decreased brain cyst burdens compared with no treatment" merely says that if you don't treat it, it spreads to the brain. It does not say the combined regimen acts within in the brain. I trust this distinction is clear? The AIDS site research all refers to maintainance therapy, which acts to kill parasites in the body leading to fewer getting to the brain, but does not describe therapy used to kill in the brain itself.
"your assumption that those tachyzoites remain in the brain and inaccessible to blood flow and the immune system is flawed, IMO)
You do not understand how substances and objects are filtered at the boundaries to the brain nor how the immune system works. The IMO is just not correct. I pointed out that reading about meningitis would make this clear. Don't assume understanding of computer technology conveys authority in reasoning in a different field in which one has no background beyond reading a few papers, and misinterpreting them, and insulting people who disagree with you. You refer to 'winnable'. Is this football then, or science?
"Decades of medical research have shown this to be an effective tool against the spread of disease. Addressing the most likely transmission vectors is simply logical.
Not entirely. The hidden assumption here is that it is an economics-based assessment only, cost of dealing with the risk. That's only a partial, and false, analysis then. A business analysis. There is nothing wrong with addressing the most likely risks, as long as one does not throw out the lesser risks. And that is my point. Do not throw them out.
"Fine. But studies of this particular parasite, with its particular life cycle, have shown that the immune system functions as I have described it."
No, the immune system only functions as you describe for the parts outside the brain. Meaning that an infection that has reached the brain resides there for a possibly long time. Your model is flawed because it does not allow for this. And it is very important. Because the hidden cost of a brain infection is far higher than the risk/cost you have assigned to it.
"however treatment methods are available, as I mentioned."
And as I said and will repeat as needed, they are not effective for the brain. I'm not sure which part of that isn't believed. However, I'm patient and kindly, and will be glad to explain it again as needed, and next time with references to immunology, and the time after that, too... Discussions of meningitis will clarify the issue. I hope I do not have to go into laborious detail, unless necessary.
Say, didn't the article say "Infected men ... are also more likely to break rules and take risks, be more independent, more anti-social, suspicious, jealous and morose." Not that that has any bearing on responses in this thread. But let me offer everyone some pyrimethamine with this morning's coffee. Bon appetit.
Here's just one discussion re brain lesions and the parasite: http://www.atdn.org/simple/toxo.html
And they find toxoplasmosis associated with brain lesions in AIDs patients: http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/448708_3
Your comment: "However, the immune system attacks these tachyzoites, eliminating most of them before they can become cysts."
That is an invalid model. The immune system does not function as effectively in all parts of the body. The question is how effective the immune system is in the brain. The blood-brain barrier prevents molecules from entering the brain that are injurious to neurons. This can include antiparasitic drugs as well as regular immune system components. The immune system chemical signalling system does not work as effectively because the brain protects against some of its components. Thus it is not reasonable to assume that the immune system can detect or attack tachyzoites within the brain. Indeed in AIDS patients apparently they are more likely to spread. I suspect that even in more commonly immune-weakened patients in the general population, for example having severe flu, that the parasite enjoys growth.
I've seen these arguments before. Mostly from people who have some irrational dislike of cats. I can't say I really get it. But to each his own. Just so long as they don't try to shove their odd view on the rest of us, I don't give a damn.
Indeed. Yes, saying 'I've seen it all before and it doesn't agree with my worldview, and people who disagree must be cat-hating weirdos' makes for an effective argument. But hopefully the ones with the odd view might end up living longer and healthier than the smug ones.
I'm sure it makes great common sense to trust Wiki medical notes as always being absolutely correct, accurate, and true, since the Wikipedia has such rigorous tests for truth validity of submitted material.
1) But aside from that, it's known that for two weeks after infection, cats CAN transmit the parasite in their feces and CAN carry the parasite externally on their fur through contamination with the feces. Hence there is a genuine risk period for physical touch. Now the problem is, when, ever, is that two week period? You can never know. Hence there is always a probability of risk from a cat. I repeat again, children are at risk from handling the animals, as they are far likelier to put fingers in their mouths. People are cautioned to avoid even breathing dust from cat boxes.
2) I stand behind what I said about having the parasite's cysts in the brain being not generally a really great idea. a) parasite causes brain lesions. NOT healable. I don't care about post-infection treatment, that's locking the barn door after the horse is out. b) I've read a research paper saying the immune system can't effectively get to the parasite in the brain.
3) the Wiki quotes use the weasel word "seems' quite a bit in regards to treatment. I think I'll stick to preferring 'certain' to 'seems to' when considering medical opinion.
4) Papers indicate that the human immune system keeps the parasite 'under control' but do not say that it eliminates the parasite completely. So what happens to a person when the immune system is weakened by a bad case of the flu or anything else? Do infected people see a flareup of the parasite, but never realize that is going on?
5) Research finds that the parasite alters behavior in mice, i.e. brain function, and makes me wonder considerably about effects in humans. If it affects aggression in males, and is estimated to affect 10 to 20% of people in North America alone... it's hardly insignificant to be concerned.
I believe that antiparasitic drugs can't cross the blood-brain barrier and kill the parasites in your brain, only in other parts of the body. So you can get this creepy parasite and be stuck for life with it breeding inside your brain. This is why I just don't put up with cats in the household. The risk is too high, the reward too small.
And finally, if I wanted a brain parasite sucking out my intelligence, I'd learn .NET programming.
We of the planet Snogron do not find this funny. We based our entire civilization upon the use of these atomic variants, and up until the day a high schooler found out how to spontaneously detonate them using a tuning fork and a QonyPilgstation3, we were doing all right. But now the survivors of our fractured planet have spread across the universe to warn others. Do not meddle where the Almighty Spaghetti Monster cautions you not to tread! Physics is not for the foolhardy, the unwise, or people who live in Crawford, Texas! Or all three.
How quickly can fill this order?
As soon as we can shoot and skin many members of Congress.
"I don't quite understand, Sir," said Harry.
Dumbledore took him by the shoulder. "Ah, Harry, that's what I like about you. Sometimes you're thick as a brick. Which allows us to keep the series going for so many books."
Hermione interrupted. "*I* understand, Sir."
"And I've been meaning to speak to you, Hermione. About those candles, broomsticks, and bowling pins the housekeepers report littering your bedchamber..."
---- sometimes, you just DON'T want to see the parts Rowling edited out of the draft manuscripts...
I take it you've never been to Taco Bell?
Oh, pfui! ANYONE can do open source etching lasers. But can they do open source breast implants, I have to ask. (banging my head on the desk in frustration.)
I am not a neuroscientist, but I play one on TV. And I want to introduce my new, patent-pending, Electron Deodorant. Ladies, if your electrons stink like a two-week trout from New Jersey, you need ED! Men, if your pits kill hungry dogs at 45 feet, you need ED! Guaranteed to stop quantum entanglement for up to 24 hours or DOUBLE your filthy money back. Not sold under GPL. Recommended by noted physicists Oprah Winfrey and Richard Simmons, and Darl McBride, winner of the Guinness Book of Records Prize in Legal Maneuvering.