[242] welcome our parasytic overlords

Forzado por el sistema me he visto obligado a editar mis articulos de blogger en vias alternas.  Mientras el bug en el blogger es corregido tendre que usar word para postear mis articulos.  Fin de la discussion.

 

Habian visto este articulo?  De acuerdo a un nuevo studio se ha vinculado a los microorganismos que causan la toxoplasmosis a la irracionalidad y control de los gatos.  Citan como anecdotas como la presencia de un gato hace que los ratones tomen riesgos innecesarios y sean mas faciles de exterminar.  Mi interes particular es mi querida gata Roxie, que vela por mi la casa cuando no estoy.

 

http://kottke.org/12/02/is-your-cat-making-you-crazy

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.

But if Flegr is right, the "latent" parasite may be quietly tweaking the connections between our neurons, changing our response to frightening situations, our trust in others, how outgoing we are, and even our preference for certain scents. And that's not all. He also believes that the organism contributes to car crashes, suicides, and mental disorders such as schizophrenia. When you add up all the different ways it can harm us, says Flegr, "Toxoplasma might even kill as many people as malaria, or at least a million people a year."

http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/03/how-your-cat-is-making-you-crazy/8873/?single_page=true

How Your Cat Is Making You Crazy

 Jaroslav Flegr is no kook. And yet, for years, he suspected his mind had been taken over by parasites that had invaded his brain. So the prolific biologist took his science-fiction hunch into the lab. What he’s now discovering will startle you. Could tiny organisms carried by house cats be creeping into our brains, causing everything from car wrecks to schizophrenia?

 

http://boingboing.net/2012/02/10/cat-parasite-may-cause-give-yo.html

 

Un poco mas del tema aqui:

http://brumskeptics.blogspot.com/2011/01/can-brain-parasites-influence-human.html

Upon learning that parasites can alter human behaviour, all sorts of questions may be raised, from global culture to behaviour at home. Take extreme cat-lovers (and hoarders) for example. Are they really choosing to be obsessed with cats? Some people keep scores of cats in their homes, and many see them as children. We see countless avatars online dedicated to the owner’s favourite feline companion. Sure, most species have fans (for me it's reptiles), and I’m not claiming that all (or any) cat-lovers are definitely being influenced by parasites when they love their pets. But cat obsession is more prevalent in certain countries and cultures than others. Is it possible that many humans could be affected by T.gondii in such a way that it attracts them to cats? As I mentioned earlier, mice and rats usually avoid cats and their scent, but infected rodents will seek them out. And we’re not talking about reducing the overall level of fear or making them more risk-taking, we’re talking about something very specific. They were still scared of open spaces for example. It was specifically the response to cats that was altered. Could T.gondii cause a similar specific change in human brains to make us more attracted to our feline friends? Could “crazy cat lady” be a symptom of an infection? If any cat-lovers are reading, what do you think about the possibilities? It would be interesting to see if there is a strong correlation between cat-lovers and infected individuals, but such a study would be difficult. If there was a strong correlation, it wouldn’t necessarily mean that infected individuals become more likely to love cats. It could simply be that people who already love cats are simply more likely to become infected since T.gondii is easily picked up from cat faeces. It all comes back to cats.

http://forums.beyondunreal.com/showthread.php?t=170010

 

Sin entrar en juicios a mi personalmente lo que me recordo es de aquel libro de Robert Heinlin llamado The Puppet Masters y un manga noventoso de VIZ titulado parasite…

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Puppet_Masters

In Iowa, they discover that the people are being brought under the mental control of repulsive, slug-like creatures that attach to their backs, just below the neck. Detaching one slug from its host, they seal it in a film canister and bring it back to headquarters in Washington, D.C. By the time they get there though, the remains of the slug are a stinking mess, and they are unable to convince the President that there is an invasion.

 

Sam eventually leads a small team back to Iowa. They inadvertently succeed in capturing a live slug, as one agent becomes "hagridden" without them realizing it. However, Mary spots it when he does not react to her allure like a normal male. The agent is unmasked, subdued and confined. The slug escapes by transferring to another person, and eventually to Sam himself. He immediately becomes enslaved and escapes the agency.

 

Meanwhile, the invasion continues to expand. Slugs are shipped through the mail to recruit more humans. Gradually they infect more and more important people, especially the members of exclusive clubs frequented by politicians. Before the Old Man tracks Sam down and captures him, they have infected the Assistant Secretary of the Treasury, whose department controls the United States Secret Service (responsible for the President's personal security); the slugs are a step away from infecting the President himself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Faculty

The aliens who take over the school do so by injecting a parasitic organism into the ear, which takes over the brain and creates what appears to be a different version of the person - one that desires to spread the parasite as much as it can. The faculty sends the entire student body to the nurse one by one for ear inspections, where they are taken over. Casey figures this out and soon warns the other five. During the meeting in Mr. Furlong's (Jon Stewart) class, he enters the room and acts suspicious, leading to an altercation which ultimately ends up with attempts to infect Zeke with the alien, but Zeke pulls out a pen filled with his drug, and jams it into Furlong's eye, which then dries out the alien inside of him. It kills the alien organism as the drug is a diuretic and the aliens require excessive amounts of water to cope with life on Earth.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parasyte
http://www.mangareader.net/1415/parasyte.html

Parasites have the ability to shapeshift the area of the body of which they took control. They can alter their facial features in order to change their identity. When necessary, they can perform bizarre and grotesque transformations, sprouting supernumerary eyes, mouths, and even wings, as well as extruding an array of blades, fangs, and tentacles, later returning their face to its normal shape. These extrusions can be moved with superhuman speed, and a Parasite can easily kill several nearby humans with an array of whirring blades before the humans are even aware that they are being attacked. Their primary use for this ability is murder in order to feed; although they can eat other foods, all normal Parasites have an instinctive compulsion to kill and feed upon beings of the same species as the host body they occupy.

A parasite attacking

Parasites have neither compassion for nor malice against humans. As a general rule, they display little to no emotion and act according to whatever seems sensible and likely to ensure their own survival. However, Parasites do sometimes appear shocked or surprised, and do develop individual personality traits. For example, Reiko Tamura (Tamara Rockford) is philosophical, Mr. A is antisocial and violent, Goto enjoys playing the piano, and Hideo Shimada prefers practicing sports. Iwaaki said that parasites are 'social animals' who are 'a lot like humans' so he believed that the development of personalities and alliances was 'unavoidable'.^[7] Because they are not emotionally troubled by pain or physical exhaustion, a Parasite can push its host body to the limit, performing much better than the host may have originally been capable of doing. Of course, this also increases the risk of exhaustion or injury.

Relacionado, les dejo este increible clip de la BBC con abejas y avispas, con musica epica de 300 en el background.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qWL5dvy1Cro&feature=related
http://boingboing.net/2012/01/10/30-hornets-vs-30000-bees-vid.html

<iframe width="560" height="315" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/_BHEkjBDWKs" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K6m40W1s0Wc

 

Bueno, que sea lo que Dios quiera.  No me voy a deshacer de la gata…(si, la referencia es a Liniers)

Related:

http://alcantarillaalquimica.blogspot.com/2011/03/la-cultura-del-miedo-en-los-medios-tema.html

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