Parasites Again

[perzephone]

During my last class on Ecology, I learned that certain parasites can affect the behavior of their hosts in order to further the parasites ability to breed and complete its lifecycle. The most notable affects fish - the parasite causes the infected fish to behave in ways that make the fish more vulnerable to predatory birds. The parasite needs the birds to host its final developmental stage.

I just read an article (Return of the Puppet Masters about the toxoplasma virus transmitted by cats. It's estimated that approximately half the human population is infected with it. It tends to make an infected person, male or female, more self-reproaching and insecure. However, men become jealous & paranoid and defensive while women become more open-hearted and outgoing. If a person is badly infected - usually an infant whose pregnant mother passed the toxoplasma to them or someone w/a compromised immune system, they can develop schizophrenia. Now, rats w/a toxoplama infection become less sensitive to the scent of cats - and rats are an important host for the toxoplasma's life cycle. The cat passes the virus into its feces, a rat ends up eating something infected from the cat, the rat becomes less wary of cats, the cat eats the infected rat and the toxoplasma life cycle continues.

But why would this virus initiate changes in humans? In women I can understand - a more warm-hearted woman would be more likely to be a cat person. So are suspicious, jealous men more likely to have warm-hearted and outgoing women in their lives, who are also cat people? Therefore providing the toxoplasma host with a warm bed & plenty of food and kitty litter? I just don't see suspicious jealous men being more cat-people than normal guys. Most guys I know are jealous, suspicious and self-reproaching, which makes me wonder if all the men I know have been infected by toxoplasma.

Apparently, many drugs used to treat schizophrenia can push the toxoplasma virus into submission - and a drug used to treat a toxoplasma infection can alleviate the symptoms of schizophrenia.

This whole thing was started by me wondering what else a Burmese python could eat besides rats and its owners. I went from the Burmese python diet (small rodents to large mammals, fish, lizards, other snakes, birds, small children) to wondering if ball pythons could be safely fed other types of meat - which yes, they eat birds, lizards and small mammals. However, a ball python fed chicken would be more likely to carry and transmit salmonella. A lot of zoos feed their big pythons road kill. Nice, huh?

Oh, and I was also trying to determine if in Buddhism, animals could be reincarnated as humans. They can, and humans can end up as animals. In the Tibetan Buddhism cosmology, a human soul is more desirable than an animal soul. Personally, I think otters have it easy. They crack open seafood on their bellies. I would so like to come back as an otter. I'm just not sure how badly I need to fuck up my karma to just end up as an otter and not, say, a cockroach. I'd say I'd like to come back as a pet dog or cat, but with my luck I'd end up a pit bull being used for dog fights, or a stray cat with no tail or something. Used to think I'd like to be a dolphin in another life, but the oceans are so polluted... ugh. I really wish there were some decent Buddhist resources here in Las Vegas to answer questions like this for me. "Pardon me, revered Master - how bad do I need to screw up to come back as an otter and not, say, a pit bull used in dog fighting?"

(Ok, an aside from Cash Cab - all the inside numbers on the roulette wheel add up to 666)

Comments

[greenforest-elf.livejournal.com]

when I was much younger I anted to come back as insects as they didnt live long and that way I could experience many different forms lol

An otter would be great, I think anything other than human will do me next time round kekeke