Ingenious Parasite

[Tunnelcat]

Nature is weird and amazing. A specific parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, can reprogram the brains of it's very specific vector, namely mice and rats. When it infects their brains, it causes them to flip from fearing their main predator, namely cats, into being attracted to them, sexually. Little mice and rats will then seek out the smell of cat pee looking for love, only to inevitably become a convenient cat snack, just so the parasite can then reproduce in the only place it can, the cat's gut. Talk about a specialized niche.

http://www.latimes.com/news/science/la- ... 8832.story

Unfortunately, in humans, it may cause bipolar disorder and schizophrenia, not cat love.

[Top Gun]

There are some other crazy-ass examples of parasitism that are fairly similar to that. I remember reading about one species of parasite that infects a snail, makes its eye stalks swell up to a huge size, and compels it to forgo its usual fear of open areas and climb to the top of plants. Birds mistake the massive eye stalks for caterpillars and eat them right off the snail, and the parasite continues its life cycle in the bird's digestive tract. Apparently, the snails often survive having their eyes ripped off, and may go on to produce future parasite generations. Nature is weird.

[Alter-Fox]

And don't forget the zombie ant fungus.

[Isaac]

This parasite must be why I keep coming back to this forum.

[flip]

Nature may be weird but that parasite is smarter than some people I know

[Tunnelcat]

There are some other crazy-ass examples of parasitism that are fairly similar to that. I remember reading about one species of parasite that infects a snail, makes its eye stalks swell up to a huge size, and compels it to forgo its usual fear of open areas and climb to the top of plants. Birds mistake the massive eye stalks for caterpillars and eat them right off the snail, and the parasite continues its life cycle in the bird's digestive tract. Apparently, the snails often survive having their eyes ripped off, and may go on to produce future parasite generations. Nature is weird.

Oooo, thanks! I'd forgotten about that one. Uuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuugh! Those eye stalks, THOSE EYE STALKS!

SNAIL ZOMBIES

[flip]

It's "as if" it's a marriage made in heaven Meaning, I don't completely buy into the parasite "taking control of it's brain" part. Looks like all 3 are completely dependant on the other for their survival.

[Tunnelcat]

How else? With the mouse/cat parasite example, how else does the parasite manipulate the mouse's brain so that the normal fear of cats response is altered into the abnormal love of cats response? The parasite is causing mice and rats to essentially commit suicide in order for the parasite to reproduce.

[flip]

Eh I don't know , 2 things I would want first to observe behavior before and after and brain scans before and after. I would think the parasite causes some kind of delirium or chemical imbalance in the mouse, which is basically mind control but also does not mean the parasite, the mouse or the cat are intelligently doing this. Also seems more than ordered, I mean I believe in evolution at this point, or some form of it, maybe not the clinical/lump everything together definition, but there's something to it. The snail seems perfectly designed to be the parasitic worms host, even living longer after having
fulfilled it's purpose. That they all (mouse/cat snail/bird), evolved together to develop this co-dependency, that is interesting as hell, if you understand exactly what is involved to make these developments. It strengthens my faith.

[Alter-Fox]

I think flip is a zombie.

[flip]

Zombie host

[Tunnelcat]

Eh I don't know , 2 things I would want first to observe behavior before and after and brain scans before and after. I would think the parasite causes some kind of delirium or chemical imbalance in the mouse, which is basically mind control but also does not mean the parasite, the mouse or the cat are intelligently doing this. Also seems more than ordered, I mean I believe in evolution at this point, or some form of it, maybe not the clinical/lump everything together definition, but there's something to it. The snail seems perfectly designed to be the parasitic worms host, even living longer after having
fulfilled it's purpose. That they all (mouse/cat snail/bird), evolved together to develop this co-dependency, that is interesting as hell, if you understand exactly what is involved to make these developments. It strengthens my faith.

Evolutionary alterations in genetic programming? Why not? Could have happened totally by accident, and since it worked for the organisms in question, it stayed around as a successful scheme for survival. I mean, viruses are just weird little specialized programs too. Why have them at all? But if you want, it could be an experiment by some creator trying things out to see what worked.

[flip]

Sure, but like I said, if you really understand the processes involved for just one species to evolve (speciation) it is astronomical odds and then to see that repeat itself over and over throughout nature, I dunno but it would sure become a fight for me to completely dismiss a person being responsible for all of it.

[Tunnelcat]

I'll grant you that. Some of the stuff that goes on in nature is so specialized, that it's almost too much of a stretch to say it occurred solely due to evolution. But, you never know what can happen with random occurrences or natural pressures in genetic programming...........

[Alter-Fox]

Well... I understand it.
You should take an intro-biology course at your local university. Enlightening.

Suffice it to say here, that while something may seem unlikely in our perception of time, evolution and speciation happens over geological time -- thousands, millions, even billions of years. And when you have that much time -- and more importantly that many generations -- there is much more chance for these things to happen.

And add to that that as the parasite's host evolves it forces the parasite to evolve to counter it, or face extinction... The parasite species that survived were the best able to counter the host's evolution.

[flip]

Lol, ok, nice summary. Now, explain the mechanics

EDIT: Just so you know, we are not arguing across the fence here. Take disease for instance. Disease's are organisms that I think crawled out of the funk that was never supposed to pile up anyways. I don't think they even evolved, I think unsanitary conditions caused them to exist.

[flip]

One thing your argument doesn't take into account, again, are the mass extinctions. These really get in the way of this slow, gradual development you keep adhering to. Considering they all basically extinct now. You should look up how many animals have went extinct just in the 20th century. Mostly due to habitat loss and a change in environment. It's just as easy to think that after each extinction, the same basis for life from the Cambrian Explosion would develop again but under a different atmosphere and conditons, causes them to grow differently. Take a squirrel for instance. There are many different types of squrriel, they all look a little different considering what region they are in. Same basis for the squirrel, just developed differently in different conditions seeing as they all have a common ancestor.

Or birds. They are said to be direct descendants of dinosaurs. They have even found some with feathers. I say they ARE dinosaurs, just the conditions now prevent them from reaching full growth. They are not extinct, they just grow in different soil now

EDIT: This is an interesting read trying to figure out how a T-rex was found still with tissue attached.
http://science.howstuffworks.com/enviro ... ne-age.htm

Stem cells extracted from embryos are prized by scientists because they are capable of turning into any cell or tissue type in the body.]

They need a program to do so.

[flip]

This is cool, maybe these genetic mutations are responsible for 98% of all species being extinct.

http://www.esa.int/esaCP/SEMTGL2VW3H_index_0.html

[Alter-Fox]

I'm not arguing with you because there would be no way for either side to convince the other they're right . But like I said a qualified biology professor would be able to explain this a lot better than I could.

I do know that even between mass extinctions there are usually millions of years and millions of generations for any species. We might, unfortunately, be causing the exception to that.

[flip]

Hehe, fair enough. You know, in the long run it doesn't matter, I just find this stuff interesting. We're probably gonna extinct ourselves too with pollution and bad genetic engineering. I also think that all this pollution and engineering could damn well cause enough pressure to make something new.

[Tunnelcat]

Yeah Alter-Fox, a biology professor could explain things very well. But me thinks that life is just a little too elegant and planned looking in all it's complexity. Like you said, it can't be proved one way or another, but we can still have our suspicions about why things are the way they are.

[Alter-Fox]

I didn't say anything about proving it -- though you are right, science can never 'prove' anything absolutely, only beyond reasonable doubt. I said there's no way to convince everyone one way or the other, and everyone has a right to believe what they want to believe, no matter how infuriating it is to people on the other side XD.

[Isaac]

Wow... these pair o' sights look blood thirsty


/pun

[Tunnelcat]

I didn't say anything about proving it -- though you are right, science can never 'prove' anything absolutely, only beyond reasonable doubt. I said there's no way to convince everyone one way or the other, and everyone has a right to believe what they want to believe, no matter how infuriating it is to people on the other side XD.

Heh, heh. I lean more towards science than religion for explaining the way things are in the world, I do have a science degree after all. But there is always that nagging sense in the back of my mind that some of our "explanations" don't always fit right with the way things are.