How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy

The Atlantic ^ | February 10, 2012 | Kathleen McAuliffe

[C19fan]

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 that encircles his head like a ring of fire.

Certainly Flegr’s thinking is jarringly unconventional. Starting in the early 1990s, he began to suspect that a single-celled parasite in the protozoan family was subtly manipulating his personality, causing him to behave in strange, often self-destructive ways. And if it was messing with his mind, he reasoned, it was probably doing the same to others.

The parasite, which is excreted by cats in their feces, is called Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii or Toxo for short) and is the microbe that causes toxoplasmosis—the reason pregnant women are told to avoid cats’ litter boxes. Since the 1920s, doctors have recognized that a woman who becomes infected during pregnancy can transmit the disease to the fetus, in some cases resulting in severe brain damage or death. T. gondii is also a major threat to people with weakened immunity: in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, before good antiretroviral drugs were developed, it was to blame for the dementia that afflicted many patients at the disease’s end stage. Healthy children and adults, however, usually experience nothing worse than brief flu-like symptoms before quickly fighting off the protozoan, which thereafter lies dormant inside brain cells—or at least that’s the standard medical wisdom.

[Lady Jag]

[Lady Jag]

[Darksheare]

[Lady Jag]

[Slings and Arrows]

[Slings and Arrows]

[trisham]

[Cyber Liberty]

flr

[Slings and Arrows]

[Lady Jag]

[Lady Jag]

[ZirconEncrustedTweezers]

My cats mostly make me crazy by constantly whining to be let out and clawing the furniture.

[ZirconEncrustedTweezers]

Hmmm... I trapped a stray in my backyard about a week ago who had markings very similar to the one in your pic.

[Darksheare]

Not my cat, just one that was captioned at I can haz cheeseburger.

[Daffynition]

[Sir Napsalot]

Holy shiite! All those from a single litter?

I don’t about making you crazy, but ‘murder by cuteness’ maybe.

[Slings and Arrows]

I suspect that it’s a couple of litters at least, but who cares? KITTEHS!

[patriot08]

FR is known for its cat lovers. If you don’t want your a handed to you for your disgusting remarks, stay off the cat threads.

[ßuddaßudd]

I miss my old cat. We need to get another one soon this year.

[verga]

Ah, but they ARE good for target practice.

Can't think of too much else though...

They taste just like chicken, deep fried. broiled, or baked.