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Comment by throwanem | Hacker News Reader

I'm glad this made the front page, but I'm not really sure how. I know why I voted for it; it's rare to see any research worth taking seriously that has to do with latent toxoplasmosis in humans. I'm curious why anyone else did.

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I haven't voted, but I am rather fascinated by the idea that cat parasites might be influencing human behaviour. Unfortunately I'm not really scientifically literate enough to evaluate the reliability of this and other research into the topic, but I'd like to know more.

It is fascinating subject, because it is zoonosis the pathology of the human brain might not be the same as in other animals. I'm not so sure that this study was done properly.

Maybe the toxoplasma made you do it

I've owned cats for awhile, and the idea of a cat parasite controlling or influencing my behavior (and the behavior of others) is both fascinating and frightening.

Plus, parasites are generally a bad thing, and there is not enough awareness about Toxoplasmosis.

> "parasites are generally a bad thing"

There's some evidence to suggest parasitic infection can prevent or reduce some diseases, such as asthma or Crohn's disease.

One study published in an ATS journal concluded: "Parasite infections do not in general protect against asthma, but infection with hookworm may reduce the risk of this disease" [1]

[1] http://www.atsjournals.org/doi/full/10.1164/rccm.200603-331O...

I mean great, but you still have hookworm. It may well be worthwhile to identify and isolate what about having hookworm might be preventative for asthma and develop it into a therapy, but that's not quite the same thing.

>the idea of a cat parasite controlling or influencing my behavior (and the behavior of others) is both fascinating and frightening

wait until we'll know everything our own gut bacteria is doing to us

Well, one commonly accepted effect of toxoplasmosis is an increased fondness for cats, and it's not hard to construct an argument that, at least in relation to modern humans, most cats pretty much are parasites.

So maybe you want to think about getting serotyped, is what I'm saying here.

> and the idea of a cat parasite controlling or influencing my behavior (and the behavior of others) is both fascinating and frightening.

More frightening than the idea of a cat controlling or influencing your behavior (by being oh so adorable)? ;-)

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