The bacteria (or virus or parasite) made me do it

I liked this title, so I didn't change it.
This is a finding that is very interesting, but can have major repercussions.

Scientists already knew that virus-infected tomato plants are more appealing to thrips than uninfected plants. The California researchers discovered something else: Once a thrip consumes the virus, its behavior changes. It spends more time feeding, and it licks more plant cells in the process, coating the next tomato plant with the virus.

washington post
This is really something that I haven't given much thought about. We as humans always worry about how a virus or bacteria can damage us, how it can spread. But not that it can change our behavior to ensure its survival. The article mentions rabies, which can drive a mammal to insanity. I have see a rabies infected animal, it gives you chills. Therefor the animal is more aggressive, ensuring that it bites someone else to pass the bacteria along.

And I am sure everyone else is making the mental leap that now these diseases can be bio engineered to cause people to do what they want. Forget small pox, we will now have an army of crazed professionals who will only eat MacDonalds for lunch. Oh wait.....

Maybe that is a little extreme, or maybe it isn't.
I am not a microbiologist. But I am sure some professional on ats will come along and either approve, or dissapprove.

Forget chemtrails, we need to stock up on purell. XD

reply to post by nixie_nox


Looks like baby steps toward a real-life zombie virus. Get your shotgun/chainsaw/cricket bats ready people!

reply to post by Glass


Yea I kinda thought about that too. There are several viruses that can sorta do that, like the above mentioned rabies.

reply to post by nixie_nox


star and flag for you on the holy crap this freaks me out scale of doom and gloom

There's also a parasite in cats that works in a similar manner. The cat spreads the parasite by urinating. Once infected, the new host is attracted to the urine where he is an easy target for the cat. However, any animal eating the grass with the urine will get the parasite which gets passed down the line (food chain). Cattle who eat this parasite will pass it to humans. I heard recently that around one-half of all humans already have this parasite. Not only that, but it does something to the brain of the host which makes him slower reacting. It was being studied at one time to see if it possibly causes people to have more automobile accidents, and I believe they decided that it in fact did. Now this is scary...

reply to post by visualmiscreant


Now that is interesting, but high up on the eeeek scale. But I love cats
New rule, cats and beef cows are not allowed to reside on the same acreage.

reply to post by nixie_nox


No, you are not that far off at all. I can remember from my parasitological studies, that sometimes, in an insect the parasites would override the insect's own instincts, f.ex. if a specific parasite infects a specific insect, and then the insect would climb onto a standing out grass-stalk or leafe, waiting for the predator (the primary host), to come and eat it. Typically a normally hiding caterpillar infested by a specific parasite, would climb to where it is totally visible for a bird, and then the bird would eat it.
F.ex even in humans, in Africa there is a tropical disease called "bilharzia", in which the primary host is a snail, and the secondary host is a mammal. In some areas, the parasite schizonts are released from the primary host at the same time as humans go to the river to wash clothes, or if humans are not available, the schizonts are released at the time most mammals goes down to the river to drink.

You can read a lot more about this, by reading a book called "The Red Queen: Sex and the Evolution of Human Nature" by Matt Ridley, as well as several other journals about parasitology.

reply to post by nixie_nox


The cat is unaware that he has this parasite. The parasite is not fully developed until it leaves the body of the cat, infects a host, and is then re-eaten by the cat... This means that the parasite is controlling the cat, and that's what's scary...

reply to post by Hellhound604


I will look into that. I find this sort of thing fascinating. Thank you all for the valuable information.

Hmm thats pretty freaky stuff, And it does make me question if this is something already happening to humans...
Maybe not going around biting each other but with other means,

reply to post by nixie_nox


Unfortunately I had to leave all of my reference material behind when I emigrated, but just searching quickly, I found this highly informative article in Wikipedia : en.wikipedia.org.... You should be able to find the references from there, good luck in your search for this highly interesting area in which few are willing to go



Following my own references, I see that "Parasite Rex" is also in that list of books I had and found extremely thought-provoking... here is the link : carlzimmer.com...


I think that is the book to read, I emphasize the following from it's summary "
Imagine a world where parasites control the minds of their hosts, sending them to their destruction.

Imagine a world where parasites are masters of chemical warfare and camouflage, able to cloak themselves with their hosts' own molecules.

Imagine a world where parasites steer the course of evolution, where the majority of species are parasites.

Toxoplasmosis...

Read about it and be paranoid. I think I may have it and it's really sad if it's true because I would be a better man without it.

War-mongers of the world are probably looking into this as well. The Parasite Wars; Part One... to be continued in a country near you...

here is another one for you :
""One of the reasons they are interesting is that parasites are often able to get in there and selectively manipulate behaviour," , and others :
"Parasite Causes Zombie Ants To Die In An Ideal Spot"
"Meet Dicrocoelium, a fellow parasite.

This lancet fluke's lifestyle is a migration through the fluids of three hosts; a cow, a snail and an ant.

Hungry snails eat the dung of the infected cows and swallow inadvertently the sequestered fluke eggs. Once hatching in the snail's intestine, they burrow through the gut wall and into a digestive gland. Within this gland, flukes reproduce a second generation - spewed back into the world by the tormented snail as balls of slime, each sticky drop, a seething mass of flukes.

It is in the third host, the ant host, where we observe mind control. Foraging ants come across the sparkling orbs of snot, sensing the source of moisture that they are, they quench their thirst on the slick beverage. Entering the third hypersea reservoir, the flukes undulate through the ant's fluids, most form cysts in the abdomen, but some home in on the nerve clusters that control the mandibles in the ants head."



www.newscientist.com...
www.sciencedaily.com...
everything2.com...

adding this to the other threads about a warning/being prepared for a zombie apocalypse and I feel a whole lot of fun coming on. Left 4 dead anyone? Kidding.

but it really does add to the whole doom and gloom thing>.

I was going to mention Toxoplasma gondii but a few beat me to it. Gave you both stars for kudos.

Apparently this parasite starts out in rats. How it gets to the cat originally is by affecting the rats brain, essentially making it suicidal by seeking out a cat. Then the cat does its thing, and it is one step closer to the old human race. The parasite resides in the centre of your brain. Lovely.

Star and Flag OP another scary prospect.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov...
www.newscientist.com...

Surely I'm not the only one to notice the massive amount of sexual energy that seems to be increasingly prevalent in pretty much every applicable area of society/media.

It's often brought into question why the PTB would encourage procreation when they have an supposed depopulation agenda.

Given the topic of this thread, I'll let you draw your own conclusions.

Originally posted by asala
Hmm thats pretty freaky stuff, And it does make me question if this is something already happening to humans...
Maybe not going around biting each other but with other means,

Sorry, I didn't quite appreciate what you suggested until I posted.

We're on the same page.

What you doing later? (just kidding)