Free Republic

Move over mosquitos. There's another blood-sucking biter Americans need to guard against because it can spread disease: the sand fly.Sand flies are tiny tan flies — about a quarter of the size of a mosquito — that live in warm, wet, rural and forested areas. In other parts of the world, they are known to transmit a parasite — a single-celled organism — that causes an infectious disease called leishmaniasis. They're most active at night, and they're so tiny they can slip through ordinary mosquito nets on tents or window screens. "Sometimes you don't even notice that you've been bitten,"...

WASHINGTON (CBS DC) — Coming into close contact with cats can spread a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) – also dubbed the “cat poop parasite” – which are linked to schizophrenia and other mental disorders that affect humans. The cat-carried parasite is the most common in developed countries and can infect any warm-blooded species, according to the Schizophrenia Bulletin. Although most humans don’t suffer any symptoms from the widespread parasite, it can cause the illness T. gondii, which is linked to weeks of flu-like symptoms, blindness and even death, CBS News reports. Two new studies have now linked the...

About a third of the world’s population is chronically infected with the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii. Data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) suggest that about 11% of the U.S. population aged 6 years and over is infected with the parasite, while in other countries the infection rate has been shown to be up to 95%. Researchers from 16 institutions across the U.S., Canada, England, Scotland, and Australia have now analyzed genetic, transcriptomic, and proteomic data from infected individuals, and from studies in cell cultures, to link T. gondii infection with a number of brain disorders,...

A Bay Area couple returned from Hawaii with more than a tan. Newlyweds Ben Manilla, a journalism professor at UC Berkeley, and Eliza Lape contracted a brain-infecting parasite called rat lungworm disease, according to Hawaii News Now. Manilla, 64, and Lape, 57, traveled to Maui for their wedding in January. After the ceremony, they spent a fortnight in the area of Hana, Hawaii News Now reported. Lape began presenting symptoms even before the duo’s return to San Francisco. "My symptoms started growing to feeling like somebody was taking a hot knife and just stabbing me in different parts of my...

Health officials in Hawaii have been warning residents not to touch snails or slugs with their bare hands because of an increase in cases of people coming into contact with a rare parasitic infection known as a rat lungworm. Experts are blaming its sudden spread across the United States on climate change and globalization.

For some women, that time of the month can be so bad it triggers a complete emotional meltdown. But those who suffer severe forms of premenstrual syndrome may be suffering from more than raging hormones – their symptoms could be caused by a parasite carried by cats, research suggests. Scientists found women with extreme symptoms such as depression and anger are more likely than others to have the parasite in their bloodstream.

An analysis of students in the US has found that those who have a certain type of brain parasite are more likely to be majoring in business studies. Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan parasite carried by cats. It can infect people through contact with cat faeces, poorly cooked meat, or contaminated water, and as many as one-third of the world’s population may be infected. The parasite doesn’t make us feel sick, but it forms cysts in the brain where it can remain for the rest of a person’s life. Some studies have linked infection with the parasite to slower reaction...

The organism Toxoplasma gondii can harm people with weak immune systems, UCR research finds. There’s a good chance you have a parasite living in your brain. A UC Riverside scientist has just made a significant discovery on how it operates, when it becomes a problem and how the damage it causes might be controlled. Emma Wilson is a professor of biomedical science with UCR’s School of Medicine. She has been studying Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite found in all mammals, for 15 years and just published a research paper in the online journal PLOS Pathogens, connecting the single-celled organism to brain...

Toxoplasma is a common 'cat parasite', and has previously been in the spotlight owing to its observed effect on risk-taking and other human behaviours. To some extent, it has also been associated with mental illness. A study led by researchers from Karolinska Institutet in Sweden now demonstrates for the first time how the parasite enters the brain to influence its host. "We believe that this knowledge may be important for the further understanding of complex interactions in some major public health issues, that modern science still hasn't been able to explain fully," says Antonio Barragan, researcher at the Center for...

Jaroslav Flegr is no kook. And yet, for years, he suspected his mind had been taken over by parasites that had invaded his brain. So the prolific biologist took his science-fiction hunch into the lab. What he’s now discovering will startle you. Could tiny organisms carried by house cats be creeping into our brains, causing everything from car wrecks to schizophrenia? No one would accuse Jaroslav Flegr of being a conformist. A self-described “sloppy dresser,” the 63-year-old Czech scientist has the contemplative air of someone habitually lost in thought, and his still-youthful, square-jawed face is framed by frizzy red hair...

Sometimes it’s hard to tell the difference between danger and sex appeal, at least for rats infected with a parasite that twists ancient rat instincts to its own advantage.The parasite, a common single-celled organism called Toxoplasma gondii, infects all sorts of animals, including rats, in which it causes a strange transformation. For obvious reasons, rats normally avoid cats. In the presence of cat urine they become very timid — unless they’re infected with Toxoplasma. Research over the past 10 years has shown that infected rats drop their normal fearful “freezing” response, and instead go exploring. They even approach the cat...

he antibacterial ingredient in some soaps, toothpastes, odor-fighting socks, and even computer keyboards is pointing scientists toward a long-sought new treatment for a parasitic disease that affects almost two billion people. Their report on how triclosan became the guiding light for future development of drugs for toxoplasmosis appears in ACS' monthly Journal of Medicinal Chemistry. In the study, Rima McLeod and colleagues point out that toxoplasmosis is one of the world's most common parasitic infections, affecting about one-third of the world population, including 80 percent of the population of Brazil. People can catch the infection, spread by the parasite Toxoplasma...

A common parasite can increase a women's attractiveness to the opposite sex but also make men more stupid, an Australian researcher says. About 40 per cent of the world's population is infected with Toxoplasma gondii, including about eight million Australians. Human infection generally occurs when people eat raw or undercooked meat that has cysts containing the parasite, or accidentally ingest some of the parasite's eggs excreted by an infected cat. The parasite is known to be dangerous to pregnant women as it can cause disability or abortion of the unborn child, and can also kill people whose immune systems are...

Toxoplasma gondii, a parasite usually found in cats that can also infect humans, has been getting more than its fair share of the limelight lately. Fresh on the heels of speculation about T. gondii manipulating human behavior on a massive scale to advance its own survival, comes news that the parasite also appears to be exerting a very strong gender selection function in human pregnancies. Infection by T. gondii is usually facilitated through the consumption of raw or undercooked meat, or, food or water contaminated with soil containing cat feces. Infection results in toxoplasmosis, which can lie dormant and go...

On paper, Toxoplasma gondii looks as if it ought to be the most famous parasite on earth. This single-celled pathogen infects over half the world's population, including an estimated 50 million Americans. Each of Toxoplasma's victims carries thousands of the parasites, many residing in the brain. As if that were not enough of an accomplishment, Toxoplasma is equally adept at infecting all other warm-blooded animals, as disparate as chickens and kangaroos. Scientists are now discovering some of the secrets of Toxoplasma's success. Researchers in Sweden report that the parasite fans out through the body by manipulating mobile cells that are...

An analysis of students in the US has found that those who have a certain type of brain parasite are more likely to be majoring in business studies. Toxoplasma gondii is a protozoan parasite carried by cats. It can infect people through contact with cat faeces, poorly cooked meat, or contaminated water, and as many as one-third of the world’s population may be infected. The parasite doesn’t make us feel sick, but it forms cysts in the brain where it can remain for the rest of a person’s life. Some studies have linked infection with the parasite to slower reaction...

Biggest concern is human and dog waste contained in a trench, Forest Service says... Between 300 and 500 people remain in Big Red Park this week after the mass exodus of people from the Rainbow Gathering in Medicine Bow/Routt County National Forest. The Forest Service is working with these people this week to develop the environmental rehabilitation process, after an estimated 15,000 people attended the annual event. So far, approximately 600 citations have been distributed by the Forest Service for camping and parking violations. The Forest Service’s biggest concern regarding the rehabilitation is the human and dog waste, which is...