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Parasites Makes Us Dumber or Sexier

Posted by Zonk on Sat Dec 30, 2006 04:41 AM
from the that-explains-hollywood-zing dept.
odie_q writes "It has long been known that the Toxoplasma gondii parasite alters its host's behavior, but now it seems the way it alters it depends on the sex of the host. From the article: 'A common parasite can increase a women's attractiveness to the opposite sex but also make men more stupid, an Australian researcher says ... Infected men have lower IQs, achieve a lower level of education and have shorter attention spans. They are also more likely to break rules and take risks, be more independent, more anti-social, suspicious, jealous and morose, and are deemed less attractive to women. On the other hand, infected women tend to be more outgoing, friendly, more promiscuous, and are considered more attractive to men compared with non-infected controls.'"
+ -
story

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  • Finally! (Score:5, Funny)

    by edwardpickman (965122) on Saturday December 30 2006, @04:46AM (#17407384)
    A scientific explaination of Jocks and blondes.
  • Ah HA! (Score:5, Funny)

    by Terminal Saint (668751) on Saturday December 30 2006, @04:47AM (#17407388)
    So THAT's what happened to me. Suddenly everything makes sense, and it's all Smokey's fault.
  • by sadler121 (735320) <msadler@gmail.com> on Saturday December 30 2006, @04:58AM (#17407426) Homepage
    Wheres the damn Goa'uld tag when you need it?
  • by Knutsi (959723) on Saturday December 30 2006, @05:14AM (#17407456)
    I found this piece of news very interesting. Is it known how the parasite affects our behavior? If it secretes a chemical that has the effect, I'd say this could be used for treatment in a variety of medical conditions. If it "attacks" specific areas of the brain, it may reveal interesting things about it.

    Things such as this hints to how our minds work, which is possibly one of the most fascinating things in the universe (:
  • by theshowmecanuck (703852) on Saturday December 30 2006, @05:15AM (#17407464) Journal
    'A common parasite can increase a women's attractiveness to the opposite sex but also make men more stupid,...
    I get the same parasite whenever I go to the pub.
  • by zoftie (195518) on Saturday December 30 2006, @05:19AM (#17407472) Homepage
    Maybe it is the next phase, of mind evolution? Snowcrash popularized tower of babel, where humans evolved through infection by a meta-virus, that had real life counterpart with same effects(Nam-shub evolution into real world). The virus broke down barriers between clearly separated brain parts and made them more equal in reasoning on how to behave.
    links:
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Origin_of_Conscio usness_in_the_Breakdown_of_the_Bicameral_Mind [wikipedia.org]
    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snow_Crash [wikipedia.org]

    Also if you haven't read snow crash, you must do so immediately. ;)
    • by rs232 (849320) on Saturday December 30 2006, @09:32AM (#17408324)
      "The virus broke down barriers between clearly separated brain parts and made them more equal in reasoning on how to behave"

      The barriers are required for consciousness as your first link clearly describes. If you want to see what the world looks like without the barriers then injest some psilocybe. You won't actually be doing any reasoning though. The next true phase of mind evolution will be the combination of computers with the brain, as to how that will happen, I don't know.
  • Yeah sure (Score:4, Funny)

    by iamdrscience (541136) <michaelmtripp@noSPAm.gmail.com> on Saturday December 30 2006, @05:20AM (#17407474) Homepage
    I can deal with being stupider as long as I can play the holophoner.
  • by Zaphod2016 (971897) on Saturday December 30 2006, @05:23AM (#17407482) Homepage
    • break rules and take risks...check
    • independent...check
    • anti-social...suck it
    • suspicious...who wants to know?
    • jealous...check...but not as jealous as you
    • morose...check
    • deemed less attractive to women...posting on /. on Fri night...check


    So how come I can't play the holophone [futurama-madhouse.com.ar]?
  • by GrumpySimon (707671) <email@simon.n[ ]nz ['et.' in gap]> on Saturday December 30 2006, @05:41AM (#17407540) Homepage
    I believe this is one of those news stories that sits around waiting for a slow news day. The original paper was released in November. It's written by Kevin Lafferty [usgs.gov] and was published in Proc. Roy. Soc. B [royalsoc.ac.uk].

    It's a really quite fascinating paper - I recommend tracking it down if you can get access. Here's how it goes: Toxoplasmia gondii is adapated to live in cats and reproduces in felid intestinal cells & is shed, encysted, in their feaces. Then it can directly infect cats who come into contact with the cysts, or it encysts in brains of smaller mammals, and moves up the food chain as they get eaten until it hits a cat, and can reproduce again.

    Fascinatingly, T.g. appears to affect rodent behavior to increase predation risk - i.e. the rodents become more active, less fearful of cat/cat smells, and have increased dopamine levels (which supposedly leads to novelty seeking behavior and neuroticism-type behaviors, or at least, they do in humans).

    Despite humans not having any major cat predators, it could still affect us as a byproduct type of thing. Particularly that whole dopamine increase - this is should increase neuroticism levels.

    So - the big question - does prevalence of T.g. correlate with cultural variation in neuroticism in humans? Lafferty finds a fairly strong correlation ( r2 of 0.38 ) between population aggregate neuroticism (as measured by the fairly standard NEO PI-R [wikipedia.org] personality inventory ).

    Unfortunately I think the populations he uses for his stats are a little bit suspect (always the problem with worldwide analyses though), but it's definitely worth a read. You should also keep in mind that so far it's only an interesting correlation and not a direct demonstration that T.g. causes large scale cultural differences.
  • by kjart (941720) on Saturday December 30 2006, @06:00AM (#17407590)

    Based on the description, this parasite will turn that ugly girl next door into a hot, promiscuous girl who might stop pepper spraying me! Sign me up for two!

  • by Shadow-isoHunt (1014539) on Saturday December 30 2006, @07:07AM (#17407776) Homepage
    "A common parasite can increase a women's attractiveness to the opposite sex but also make men more stupid"
    What do you mean by more stupid?
  • by OriginalArlen (726444) on Saturday December 30 2006, @08:22AM (#17408070)

    ...infected women tend to be more outgoing, friendly, more promiscuous, and are considered more attractive to men

    Perhaps it's just me, but my first thought after reading the summary was that the best and brightest the world of cosmetics marketing has to offer are probably working on the advertising campaign right now. "New, from L'Oreal: toxoplasmosis, the only parasite derived from cat shit that's /guaranteed/ to make you MORE ATTRACTIVE to the opposite sex. Because you're worth it!"...

    Given the crap they already get women to shell out fifty quid for a couple of ounces, parasite-infected cat shit would be a relatively easy sell.

  • by Joebert (946227) on Saturday December 30 2006, @08:32AM (#17408126) Homepage
    Damn you're sexy, you have parasites don't you ?
  • I need to (Score:5, Funny)

    by fireslack (1039158) <fireslack@gmail.com> on Saturday December 30 2006, @12:35PM (#17409326) Journal
    Get my wife a cat!
    • Re:Remember, kids! (Score:5, Informative)

      by Sique (173459) on Saturday December 30 2006, @06:36AM (#17407704) Homepage
      Remember, kids! RTFA!

      The article clearly states that the changed behaviour could be seen after infecting the mice with toxoplasmose and be reversed by treating the infection. So we have something that looks a lot more like a causation and less a pure correlation (with currently unknown relation).
        • by mrtrumbe (412155) on Saturday December 30 2006, @11:22AM (#17408808) Homepage
          Sorry, bad formatting, let's try this again...

          How do you like your steak? Unless your answer is "well done", you are at greater risk for toxoplasmosis than any cat owner.

          From wikipedia: "The most common means of transmission to humans is raw or undercooked meat."

          Further, based on research it is *extremely* unlikely that you could pick up this parasite from casual contact with cats. Handling cat feces and not washing your hands? Sure. Petting a cat? No way.

          From wikipedia: "Although the pathogen has been detected on the fur of cats, it has not been found in an infectious form, and direct infection from handling cats is generally believed to be very rare."

          Further, cats must contract the disease from somewhere and are only infectious for a brief period right after contracting the disease. Which means that indoor cats that don't have access to infected prey can't get the disease (except by other transmission methods which are the same for humans). Or, if your cat already has toxoplasmosis, it means that it can't transmit the parasite to you (except for that brief period right after infection.

          From wikipedia: "Cats excrete the pathogen in their faeces for a number of weeks after contracting the disease, generally by eating an infected rodent. Even then, cat faeces are not generally contagious for the first day or two after excretion, after which the cyst 'ripens' and becomes potentially pathogenic. Studies have shown that only about 2% of cats are shedding at any one time, and that shedding does not recur even after repeated exposure to the parasite."

          Further, the disease *is* treatable. The cysts are resistant to common forms of treatment for parasites (antibiotics). However, there are treatments available which seem to eliminate the cysts.

          From wikipedia: "The antibiotic atovaquone has been used to kill Toxoplasma cysts in situ in AIDS patients.[3] In mice, a combination of atovaquone with clindamycin seemed to optimally kill cysts."

          Here is a link to wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasmosis [wikipedia.org]

          Every time a toxoplasmosis article comes up, someone will make a post like this, saying that *for them* cat ownership is simply too risky. This, of course, completely ignores the reality of the situation, where cat ownership is actually far less risky than eating, where mishandling of food or "undercooked" meat (may I be the first to say, yum!) are far more likely to score you an infectious parasite.

          Please inform yourself and stop spouting this trollish bullshit.

          Taft