How Your Cat is Making You Crazy (Toxoplasmosis)

The Atlantic ^ | March 2012 | KATHLEEN MCAULIFFE

[Bon mots]

Microbiologist explains "Toxo" (Toxoplasmosis).

[gusopol3]

I hate to admit it, but I agree— that guy was born crazy.

[Bon mots]

Bizarre Human Brain Parasite Alters Fear

[GreatMan]

Ping

[Bon mots]

Does it give you bad hair, too?

I'm afraid so.
See my Post #21.

[JoeProBono]

[Dr. Sivana]

1. Pick cat up and cradle it in the crook of your left arm as if holding a baby. Position right forefinger and thumb on either side of cat’s mouth and gently apply pressure to cheeks while holding pill in right hand. As cat opens mouth, pop pill into mouth. Allow cat to close mouth and swallow. [ . . . ]
15. Arrange for vet to make a house call.

Or . . . put pill inside medium size chunk of cooked white chicken breast meat. Yell, "Food for kitty!" and throw cicken chunk in the air. Kitty catches and eats meat, including pill. Method devised by Mrs. Sivana and thousands of other clever wives.

[exDemMom]

Ah, yes. The cats infect you with Toxoplasmosis, and the next thing you know, you keep feeding the little beasts. And scooping their litterboxes. And spending megadollars on vet visits.

Oh, the humanity of it all.

Seriously... not all cats have it, and it's not really an issue for people who have kept cats for prolonged periods of time.

The most common mode of transmission of toxoplasmosis is through consumption of undercooked meat. So far, the studies of the effects of toxoplasmis on human behavior are inconclusive. The claim by Jaroslav Flegr that toxoplasmosis infections specifically cause people to have car accidents (that is, above the rate at which any illness predisposes people to not drive well) is not supported by data.

[st.eqed]

My dog tells me all the time that cats are evil and the spawn of satan. So I am not surprised.

[samtheman]

That is an amazing video. Thanks for posting it. My first thought was “this guy would be more credible if he shaved his stupid Kaczynski-looking beard”, but then I just settled in and listened, and though I still think he’d probably be a more credible human in general if he got rid of that hideous thing, his discussion of how the parasite changes rat behavior is truly amazing.

Again, thanks for posting this.

[JoeProBono]

[samtheman]

My dog tells me all the time that cats are evil and the spawn of satan.

Martha's been saying that on her TV show since the beginning.

[JoeProBono]

[Nervous Tick]

>> There’s just sumthin’ about this guy that ....

He *does* have that Crazy Cat Man look, doesn’t he?

[Nervous Tick]

>> I cannot find the original studies that alerted me to this, but they were done in Asia

Oh, come on. They don’t *have* cats in Asia (except in the “chicken” chow mein...)

:-)

[Nervous Tick]

>> Mood altering parasite makes women more friendly and men into jerks.

Just wonderful. Now Mrs. Tick is going to be *utterly convinced* that our kitty gave toxoplasmosis to both of us.

[Tainan]

Interesting video...the guy lets out a really good fart @ :30 seconds in.

[Tainan]

Last time I saw a head like that was on Star Trek.

[dangus]

Yes, he looks like a Rowling House Elf, and yes, he does have toxoplasmosis.

[samtheman]

The fart is a punctuation mark for his thoughts on free will, which are all negative. It’s interesting how behavioral scientists are so dismissive of the concept of free will. Are they so stupid as to miss the logical conclusion of that dismissiveness, that if there is no free will then none of their own ideas are freely chosen thoughts but are instead mere puppet-prattle that they are engaging in without any thought at all?

It’s always struck me that arguments against free will are always arguments in favor of the proposition that the person making that argument is a mindless automaton repeating something handed down to him by some random (or directed) source.

None of which takes away from the interesting story he tells of his research with rats, research that is obviously conducted by free-will-wielding humans.