Posted on 04/03/2014 4:37:56 PM PDT by Nachum
No one would accuse Jaroslav Flegr of being a conformist. A self-described “sloppy dresser,” the 53-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.
(Excerpt) Read more at theatlantic.com ...
I had a rescue cat who couldn’t handle all the children here. She got so nervous that she wouldn’t come downstairs to use the box unless they were all in bed. Then she left one day, not long before Frank was born.
I’d try to get my cat Squeek’s opinion but she’s sleeping.......In fact, the only time she’s not sleeping is when she’s eating or trying to wake me up in the morning to feed her.......she’s a weird cat.
AWWWWWWWWWWWWW
Made it clear that the accommodations just didn’t seat. It wasn’t her fault; she’d been mistreated in her previous home.
I was over at my niece’s house the other day. Her big, orange cat jumped up on the coffee table and sat looking at me.
“Nice kitty!”, I said to him.
“%#^€ you.”, he replied.
I was amazed! Normally, he doesn’t swear.
Brutus has been outside all day. She’s a fanatic about being OUTSIDE! It’s dark, and she’s going to have to break down and come inside pretty soon. I saw her way down in the front yard this evening, and she just ignored me; came out in the yard where I could see her - but wouldn’t come to the house. - It’s about time for the snakes to be coming out of hibernation; and I worry about her, but it’s no use. She IS a fanatic about being outside; no doubt about it.
“My cat has decided it is now OK to get up on the kitchen table and lay on my laptop keyboard while I am using it. Removing her usually involves a lot of screaming and bloodshed. Her screaming and me bleeding.”
My lap cat likes to lay under the laptop and imitate a desk. That works better.
Allergic to cats. Won’t go into a home with them.
Allergic to cats. Won’t go into a home with them.
An extremely well written article with detailed information. A rarity these days.
My cat is an avid Freeper, but only when I am there.
That I know of.
LoL, Bottle of Eye wash on its way.
Cats haven’t worked out how to spell check, that is the giveaway. :)
Some how I think that cat is pushy whipped.
Beaux doesn't fight me, but he HAS typed some weird things from time to time. ☺
UGGGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Bad picture, the cats hind shot looks better than her facial.
My cats do NOT like BO...any of them...joebama, jF’Nk, the clintoon fambly etc....
Every time one of them comes on the tube BOTH of them run into the other room.
MAYBE, it is because when I see either of the above FOOLS and/or LIARS, I start yelling and if something handy throw it in the general direction.
But I have finally ‘trained’ them.
OPPS, there goes that little bell, time for me to get something to eat - AFTER I tend to them.
MAYBE I sort of ‘overtrained them’????.
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