The other day, I was in Safeway—buying Diet Dr Pepper, naturally—when I heard the guy up ahead of me say something to his friends that I was positive I must have misheard. Specifically, what I heard him say was "and there's this really awesome parasitic wasp that drives its victims like cars." Now, I like parasitic wasps. I am, one might say, unduly fascinated by parasitic wasps. So I tend to assume that when I hear other people bring them up in conversation, I'm hearing them wrong.
I began shamelessly eavesdropping...and wonder of wonders, miracle of miracles, he was talking about insect parasitism! Yay! As the conversation swung toward blood flukes, I interjected to note that blood flukes were probably largely responsible for the evolution of gendered reproduction. He looked, in a word, delighted.
What followed was the largest, rowdiest, happiest discussion of parasite behavior I have ever been involved with outside of a group of my friends. All five of the people involved had read Parasite Rex, and parthenogentic reproduction came up, gleefully.
I think I may have met my male equivalent from a nearby parallel dimension.
Dude, I envy you. The the only kinds of conversations I ever get into at the grocery store are debates at the local Whole Foods where I end up trying not to throttle hyperactive yuppy moms who are convinced vaccines cause autism and lecture me on being selfish for not replicating yet.
"You don't understand because you're not a mommy! And you're not a mommy because you're SELFISH!!!!"
It's enough to make me want to attempt to drown myself or them in organic fruit juice.
Although I did recently learn something very nifty about parasites from my friend Amber (an evolutionary biologist) who sent me a totally neat article about parasites that need cats to reproduce (it doesn't harm the cat) but grow in mice (...it does harm the mouse). Since mice are afraid of cats, the parasite screws with the mouse's brain and makes it absolutely LOVE the scent of cats, which causes the mouse to be caught and eaten by a cat, which allows the parasite to reproduce in the cat's digestive tract or somesuch. Apparently there is a line of thought that this parasite might be responsible for crazy cat ladies and cat hording. Most parasite things freak me out but I thought that was pretty interesting.
That's toxoplasmosis, and it sometimes does harm cats, just more often the other animals that catch it. It's the one that's bad news for pregnant women (and why you should never house marsupials near cats). It at least makes mice less cautious, and reduces their desire to seek cover; I hadn't heard about active cat-seeking, but it wouldn't surprise me.
Don't get me started about vaccines. You know the guy responsible for the original autism-vaccine connection research grossly violated laws regarding use of human subjects, and lost his medical license, right?
Toxoplasmosis gondii is reputed to cause sexual promiscuity in women (also heightened intelligence and kindness? but makes men anti social and belligerent) (Flegr et al, Lindova et al).
Yes, I do. I know someone who works in autism research (real autism research) and one of my best friends is an evolutionary biologist who studies how environmental factors (like toxic loads, and for that matter, viruses, bacteria, and parasites which is what she was studying the last time I checked) influence human conditions like depression, autism, cystic fibrosis, and so on. Interestedly, but anecdotally of course, said person I know who works in autism research has a son with Aspergers. He was not vaccinated in a timely fashion, but not due to paranoia on the part of his parents--it was due to allergies he had, which required special vaccinations. He was eventually vaccinated, but it was only after he'd been diagnosed with Aspergers.
I think of her and her son when people bring up the whole correlation/causation problem with age of onset with autism and vaccinations. Just because children tend to start showing real signs of the condition at the age they are vaccinated doesn't mean the two relate. It's a logical fallacy.
geeky
June 30 2010, 17:32:23 UTC 7 years ago
"You don't understand because you're not a mommy! And you're not a mommy because you're SELFISH!!!!"
It's enough to make me want to attempt to drown myself or them in organic fruit juice.
Although I did recently learn something very nifty about parasites from my friend Amber (an evolutionary biologist) who sent me a totally neat article about parasites that need cats to reproduce (it doesn't harm the cat) but grow in mice (...it does harm the mouse). Since mice are afraid of cats, the parasite screws with the mouse's brain and makes it absolutely LOVE the scent of cats, which causes the mouse to be caught and eaten by a cat, which allows the parasite to reproduce in the cat's digestive tract or somesuch. Apparently there is a line of thought that this parasite might be responsible for crazy cat ladies and cat hording. Most parasite things freak me out but I thought that was pretty interesting.
June 30 2010, 18:31:02 UTC 7 years ago
Don't get me started about vaccines. You know the guy responsible for the original autism-vaccine connection research grossly violated laws regarding use of human subjects, and lost his medical license, right?
June 30 2010, 21:45:50 UTC 7 years ago
June 30 2010, 23:28:09 UTC 7 years ago
I think of her and her son when people bring up the whole correlation/causation problem with age of onset with autism and vaccinations. Just because children tend to start showing real signs of the condition at the age they are vaccinated doesn't mean the two relate. It's a logical fallacy.
July 1 2010, 05:08:58 UTC 7 years ago
July 1 2010, 05:08:30 UTC 7 years ago