The parasite living in the brains of rats and mice makes them not afraid of cats and allows it to finish its life cycle in the body of a cat
A parasite controls the fate of rats and mice by hijacking the part of their brain that controls the rodents' fear of cats. This is according to a study recently published (April 2, 2007) in the journal PNAS.
Mice and rats die if they smell cat urine, but not if they are infected with the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii. The parasite can complete its life cycle only if the rodent is eaten by a cat, so that it "brainwashes" it, and makes it like the smell.
In an article published by Ajai Vyas and his colleagues from Stanford University in California, they revealed that the "brainwashing" is done with precise surgery. It seems that the parasite reverses the inherent fear in rodents by interfering with the amygdala - the part of the mouse brain responsible for this. Vyas and his team examined the distribution of the parasite in the brains of infected rats and found that the concentration was almost double that of the almond.
The parasite has tuned the brain so that the mouse continues to learn to fear other factors in order to survive, with the exception of being eaten by cats - the type of death essential to the parasite.
Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (DOI: 10.1073/pnas.0608310104)
For the abstract of the article on the PNAS website
(And thanks to the commenter for Gilat Simon's article, the evolutionary arms race, in the version Published in YNET)
22 תגובות
Avi Shalom.
I am doing work on this parasite in my science studies series.
Can you help me find articles about it? They can be in English or Hebrew, it doesn't matter.
Thanks
Talia
Whoever said above: "It is likely that copies of this parasite tried different places in the brains of mice but these mice were not eaten by cats on average more than any other mouse. These parasites did not survive." He did not take into account that if the parasite tried different places in the mouse's brain and the parasite did not survive, it could not reach maturity and bring more parasites! He didn't have time to try! The only possibility is that from the beginning it was built in such a way that it would reproduce precisely in this very specific place in the mouse brain and continue the lineage. If it proves that there is a higher power? Not necessarily, but if it strengthens the possibility of a superior force - unequivocally, yes! and weakens the possibility of coincidences. that's it. There are no proofs (and maybe no refutations either, unlike Popfer) but there are reinforcements and weaknesses.
There is a parasite that hijacks the minds of humans. His name is Amnon Yitzchak.
I now returned to the article and saw all the surprising comments added to it. In retrospect, I should have written "I'm the first!!!1" but I forgot. Niha
It is shameful and embarrassing to read the religious arguments that amount to ignorance in everything related to the theory of evolution. I take my hat off to my father who bothers and explains with infinite patience to all the commenters again and again and again even though this is a war on wind farms. I do not understand and cannot perceive where this strength or desire of yours comes from, my father, to sit down to write and seriously reply to all these long messages that lack meaning and meaning.
There are very serious religious scientists. Although I am completely secular, I did my master's degree at Bar Ilan. There you can find such a strange mosaic of evolutionist professors on the one hand and ultra-Orthodox professors on the other. Professors Yair Ahitov and Avi Zisvin are especially well known - very religious people who teach a fascinating course on evolution.
In the cases above, we can see that there was an organized "dressing up" of a group of friends or converts trying to lighten up and weigh down, so to speak. In fact, they do the complete opposite - although their arguments may be convincing to those who really do not know enough about what evolution is and who can be confused by such and such questions.
To be sure, the topic of evolution should get a little more stage. This site publishes space articles every day. Interesting as well, but not enough articles on evolution. The public is interested.
Ami
Hello Gal.
How exactly do you want me to respond after such a closing sentence: "I would be happy to read your response and that we may be able to open our eyes and see the divine providence that guides not only the animals but also and especially us - humans - the purpose of creation. Good news - Ofer. "
I don't need someone trying to close my eyes under the guise of opening them.
Secondly, the debate between the followers of evolution and the followers of the creation theory is no more significant for progress than the debate that was between the sides of the earth in the center or the sun in the center, after 160 years, it's time we overcome the urge to try to find God everywhere. In my opinion this interim period is too long. Therefore, there is no point in even addressing individually the arguments that usually have no meaning.
Thirdly - as for religious people collaborating in science - there is an excellent example Prof. Israel Oman, but even he had a split in his initial support for the first article that described the subject of the biblical code, for which he knew how to apologize.
Any attempt to harness random phenomena (in the case of the so-called biblical code) or strange phenomena (such as the case described in this article) to prove the existence of God can at most be done in private, certainly not to demand it from the only website that has set its flag to promote science in the face of ignorance.
It's a shame that the debate that started in the Christian world spilled over to Israel, which has enough arguments and enough trouble. In my opinion, the fact that Amnon Yitzchak shows films produced by Protestant TV stations in the USA proves this absurd alliance between all religions, each of which is afraid that its counterpart will blink first, and therefore the first target of the Protestants was the new Pope, in order to recruit the Catholics as well, and neutralize the influence of the previous pope who supported evolution. By the way, the Anglican Church adopted Darwin into its bosom and even took care of his grave in one of its respectable churches, and still its believers are religious people who believe in God.
I am convinced that Judaism could have been a light to the Gentiles in this case as well, instead of a drag.
Avi Shalom,
I must point out that the aggressive attitude towards what appears to be an honest invitation to a substantive discussion on the subject of the controversy between advocates of the theory of evolution and those who believe in the theory of creation and a higher power, is a little surprising, and is not appropriate for a site that presents a scientific approach to the world - where every idea is supposed to be worthy of discussion.
In my opinion, Ofer did not at all try to use the site as a platform for repentance, but simply expressed his admiration for the complexity of nature, which in his eyes reflects the beauty of creation - and there is nothing wrong with that! Note that when you mocked his faith, he made sure not to be offended and even invited you to an open-minded discussion on the subject, and it's a shame you couldn't continue in the same reasonable and pleasant tone.
In my opinion, his enlightenment regarding the foundations of faith in the Darwinist theory as well, was very interesting and certainly worthy of discussion, even though I personally was not convinced. In any case, I am sure that a discussion on the subject could only enrich the participants and readers.
Many examples can be given of religious and believing people, who quietly and modestly, participate and lead in modern research, and manage to contribute to it despite their different starting point. They too, like their fellow atheists, marvel at the beauty of the universe. So why should they immediately encounter disdain and suspicion? Just as we expect the ultra-orthodox to be tolerant towards non-believers, I think it should also work the other way around.
And I write as a complete secularist.
In the hope that you will address the points raised by Ofer in a matter-of-fact way and enrich all of us,
Happy Independence Day
Hello Ofer. I did not say that you have a connection, but that you do the same as him, sinning in the sin of arrogance, assuming that those who do not believe in a religion (Judaism, Christianity - and which current in one of these two religions?) are wrong.
Newton believed in all kinds of things that at the time were considered reasonable, including astrology, or at least made a living from it. Darwin was even supposed to be a priest. Einstein spoke in the language of religious imagery, but wrote explicitly and more than once that he does not believe or at most believes in Spinoza's God (who is embodied in nature but is not revealed). for the proof of their doctrine. Newton's theory was also allegedly disproved by Einstein, but with the means that a person has without machines it is certainly reasonable and even at low speeds it is still possible to predict with an accuracy of seconds where a spaceship will be in 20 years. General relativity is true at enormous speeds and vast distances, while quantum theory is true at ranges of millimeter particles. At most there is a matter of generalization.
Even if a certain Torah is disproven (the steady state for example, you mentioned), no disaster happens and no one mourns, the scientific proof is accepted, even if it sometimes takes a generation or two, unlike in religion.
As for G. It is clear that there are thousands of ultra-Orthodox people who work for a living, including scientists, but what about the hundreds of thousands of idlers, who do so with the encouragement of many rabbis and for absolutely no reason, not even a halachic one, but for fear that they will interfere with the secular public and want to repeat the question.
d. Creation sites are not a source for me, just like conversion sites of the type of Amnon Yitzchak, except for claiming that the science is not accurate and using false arguments such as the apparent contradiction to the second law of thermodynamics, or quoting from social events, taken out of context, they do not offer a logical alternative but a religious one .
God. As for a lovely day, that is true until the next hour, after which Memorial Day begins. Tomorrow evening will be a good day again.
BSD
Avi Shalom,
A. I have no intention of replying to you - you can be calm, also there is no connection between me and Amnon Yitzchak or others, so please accept my response as a private commenter without making generalizations.
B. I can't understand why the fact of believing in a higher power upsets you, after all it can be said that you are upset about Albert Einstein, Isaac Newton, Prof. Fred Hoyle (sorry for mixing up the generations but that's what came to my mind at the moment) - only because they believed and declared openly and even Proudly believing in the reality of some higher power responsible for our world. In general, it is amazing to look throughout scientific history and find almost every serious scientist from the Greeks to the physicists of quantum mechanics who admitted the reality of a creator for the world. And it seems to me that precisely in our generation, after the conclusions of quantum mechanics regarding the principle of uncertainty in all of the particles that make up nature, it seems to me that precisely today scientists are more humble and understand that science is not absolute and arrogant as in the past (see for example the well-known Laplace statement that if they gave him the exact data on every object In the universe, he could accurately predict his position, etc. and today quantum mechanics refutes this claim completely!).
third. The things you wrote about not going to work, etc. by people of faith are painful things that indicate that you unfortunately feed on false media and prejudices - which is not appropriate for a scientist like you. Needless to say that as a religious person or even an ultra-orthodox person, I was involved in biotechnological research at the Seas and Lakes Research Institute, in the nephrology department at Nahariya Hospital and in other places. There are many like me, whether in this profession or in other professions, and it's a shame to discuss this on such a respected site, it's really not the topic.
d. I again claim that many areas of modern science contradict the idea of evolution and I refer you to Prof. Fred Hoyle's respected book - THE INTELLIGENT UNIVERSE - A NEW VISION OF CREATION AND EVOLUTION
In this book you will find many examples of my claim and I hope that you will treat them properly as a true scientist who is free of all preconceived notions...
God. I respect your desire to avoid phrases that seem like "repentance" and therefore I will end by wishing you a lovely day!!!
Ofer.
A parasite controls the fate of seculars and gays by hijacking the part of their brain that controls noumatic behavior. This is according to a study recently published (April 12, 2007) in the journal NEJM.
Normal people freak out if they smell the odor of a gay or secular person, but not if they are infected with the protozoan parasite Toxoplasma gondii. The parasite can complete its life cycle only if the patient is eaten by a lion, so that it "brainwashes" him, and makes him like the smell.
In an article published by Ajai Vyas and his colleagues from Stanford University in California, they revealed that the "brainwashing" is done with precise surgery.
This proves the rightness of the demand in the Torah of Israel for the death penalty for homosexuals and unbelievers in the religion of Israel
The Torah of Israel is truth and justice and has a scientific foundation!
For all the ultra-Orthodox who are responding to this article, is there a special reason for this? How is it different from hundreds of other articles on the site describing the wonders of evolution?
It just makes me happy to see the hand of divine providence here.
Who has doubts that God is the creator of our amazing hall?
We will soon receive the true and complete redemption by Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson Shalita, aka the King of the Messiah soon and immediately soon in our days Amen and Amen Sela!
BDS
There is no doubt that even in the minds of the secular and homoous there is a virus or a parasite that causes their deviation.
It is not for nothing that they are given a severe punishment in the Holy Torah which helps to make these parasites disappear.
Again, the alloric wisdom proves itself!
Ofer Shalom. First, I would appreciate it if Mr. Amnon Yitzchak would not become infected with the sin of arrogance and try to bring me back to repentance. I'm not looking for any way, science has sufficient explanations, and even the most interesting stories, like this one, are not supposed to prove the existence of a higher power. As for Huxley - there are moral issues that even an atheist advocates, for example the prohibition of murder. So Huxley's quote was at best suggested out of context (and I didn't check its correctness).
The fact that people believe in a higher power annoys me but does not bother me personally, as long as they understand that they should not let the emissaries of that higher power run my life (also the fact that they run their lives bothers me, among other things, because their gurus advocate the prohibition of working and earning a living and living at the expense of taxpayers)
As for the topic of the article, you are confusing cause and effect. The bacteria weren't supposed to know that those who don't pass into the cat don't live, simply because of a certain coincidence some of these parasites happened to pass into the cat and then survived, and on average those that were in the tonsil survived better than those that were in places where they had no effect on the mouse's fear of the cat. This is actually an excellent example of the coevolution of three species and not just two as it appears on the surface. On the contrary, it further strengthens the beauty of evolution.
And as I said, the complexity is not infinite, because once something is successful it stays and the next development is based on the existing one. There is no rolling of dice in every generation and therefore the multiplication of chances so beloved by followers of the creation theory has no meaning.
Second, the laws of thermodynamics hold in a closed system. A living being eats and breathes, and also expels the food and the products of respiration on the other side, so that you have asked the second law of thermodynamics is not relevant
BDS
Good week, father.
First, a response to your premise in which you write:
"It is likely that copies of this parasite tried different places in the brains of mice..."
Let me share with you your current determination. In order for copies of the parasite to try different places in the mouse's brain, they must "know" 2 assumptions in advance: a- The parasites multiply only in the cat's stomach. B. A mouse is naturally afraid of a cat
And I wonder where this knowledge of the parasite comes from. After all, even according to your method, there is no coevolution or other evolutionary connection that existed at the beginning of the formation of these creatures. Why would the parasite try to reach the mouse's brain?? After all, the advantage he achieves by doing so is completely indirect and it is scientifically unlikely at all that he would do so. I do not completely rule out the mechanisms of natural selection and mutations, but these can only be relied upon by others
that the wonderful mechanism described already exists. Therefore, there is no connection to what you wrote about the second part of evolution regarding the preservation of the creature's characteristics after it acquires them. My argument is, as mentioned, in the preliminary premise for this.
In fact, this is one of the serious problems of evolutionists, and that is that they do not consider other scientific fields related to their claims. After all, around the development of a living being in a random way there are laws of physics, mathematics, statistics and probability, thermodynamics - laws that contain serious objections to the idea of the development of a living being in a random manner (if you wish, I will tell you more about it in the next response). And if you notice that the evolutionists also "believe" in their fundamental assumptions without question (again, like the sentence you brought at the beginning of your speech. "Most likely..." is a completely faith-based sentence)
And on them they build barbed wire of explanations without the slightest ability to prove real scientific proof of the above assumptions.
Beyond that, I can't understand what bothers you and others so much about there being a higher power that is responsible for our world. I'm sure you also understand that such infinite complexity in the living world, starting from the most basic levels of cell multiplication (and already Watson and Crick - the discoverers of DNA claimed that the creation of a living being is a miracle!) up to the levels of human development require a master planner. On the contrary, in my opinion, the claim Regarding the accidental formation of all creatures, it is really a scientific loss and it is not understandable why there is so much stubbornness on the part of some scientists not to accept the explanation of creation. To conclude my current remarks, I will bring the words of William Huxley - Darwin's distinguished student who admitted in the twilight of his life that the fact that he championed the idea of evolution for a large part of his days It is due to the fact that this gives complete release from any kind of yoke because there is no higher power that supervises us and in any case it is possible to fulfill all desires and wishes without restraint... (Huxley's words).
I would love to read your response and that we will be able to open our eyes and see the divine providence that guides not only the animals but also and especially us - humans - the purpose of creation. Good news - Ofer.
And what about human brains?
There are people (mainly women) who dedicate their lives to caring for cats. Is it possible that they are infected with this parasite?
A parasite can also be as small as a virus (the rabies virus for example) and still control the behavior for its needs. (parasite transmitted by bites).
Is it possible that a virus is also responsible for homosexuality - when its mode of infection is the same as that of the AIDS virus, but this hypothetical virus has already undergone adaptation and is not fatal to the carriers.
Hello Ofer, the answer is quite simple, and it is found in the mechanism that drives evolution - the mechanism of natural selection.
It is likely that copies of this parasite tried different places in the brains of mice but these mice were not eaten by cats on average more than any other mouse. These parasites did not survive.
By chance, this parasite was lucky enough to settle in the tonsil, and the mice that lived in it were eaten by cats and the particular parasite was able to close its life cycle. Since parasites multiply at an enormous speed, and since the evolution of cats and mice has existed for some tens of millions of years, and considering the huge amount of mice, every mouse and every cat (like every other animal) was an opportunity for evolution to make an experiment.
This success of the parasite was due to chance the first time, but once the mission was successful, the parasite passes this trait on to its offspring to this day.
It is true that this is an interesting scenario, because we are used to thinking of predators and prey in terms that are visible to the eye and not in terms of parasites, but the microscopic world is even more interesting than the macroscopic one, and the pattern repeats itself. It seems to me that the late Gold once said that predators do not have to be bigger than the prey, even viruses that attack a person and are smaller than him to the extent of a billionth of a billion, are considered predators.
The chances that such a process will occur from an evolutionary point of view are not less than one in fifty, maybe the chance of this specific event happening is not infinite, but some event, that is, some kind of adaptation had to come, not from this parasite, then from another bacteria, or some virus or that kind of coevolution between the mouse And the parasite was not present in mice so it was present in some other animal. The luck of the mouse is simply that the knowledge about it is greater than the millions of other species on the planet, due to being a common laboratory animal.
Evolution has two separate parts, and those who believe in the theory of creation tend to ignore the second - the first part is natural selection, and the second part is that once a certain creature adapts to the environmental conditions and survives the period until it reproduces, it retains these features, and randomness has no part in this matter, so as soon as something is created that gives an advantage to its owner, it survives. That is, once a certain feature is created, the chance of its preservation is very close to 1, and since there are so many variations, and we do not require the chance that all of them will exist, but only that one of them will exist, these chances are high, and even if they do not approach 1 (nature could have managed well even without this parasite), are very high - simply the sum of the very small probabilities that a certain trait will be formed within a group of traits.
BSD,
Hello Avi Blizovsky-
A. First of all, on this occasion, thank you for your wonderful website, I enjoy reading here almost every day (and also your other articles in "Galileo", etc.)
B. As a matter of fact - the divine providence revealed in the case you brought has nothing to do with whether God loves or hates mice. God created every creature with a natural cultural instinct and every creature does this in its own way. In the same way, you could ask if God hates zebras, elk, termites, sheep, etc., etc., just because they are animals that are preyed upon by various predators. And of course the matter is far-fetched, but every living creature feeds on one type of creature and is eaten or devoured by other creatures, which balances the food chain in nature, as you probably know well.
The beauty and wonder of the example you gave is in finding the exact location in the mouse brain where the parasite causes an incredibly specific and precise "bug" - after all, the nervous system in the brain is incredibly complicated and any small change in the damage to the exact place will lead to the collapse of the whole wonderful system you described. After all, on the one hand, in order to survive, the parasite needs to make the mouse behave normally, and on the other hand, it needs to make it go through the same "bug" described. In my opinion (and not only in my opinion) it is simply impossible for such a process to occur in a random evolutionary way by natural selection and mutations. The chances that such an event will happen are below the number 1 to the power of -50 - which according to many scientists in the present and in the past (such as the British cosmologist Fred Hoyle) the chance of such a natural event will never occur even after billions of years of evolution.
I would love to read your relevant comment.
Ofer.
To Ofer, how exactly do you see divine providence, do you think God hates mice? If so, why do you think he created them? Just to be used as food for his favorite cats?
BDS
Simply amazing - it's easy to see divine providence here
Does anyone still have doubts that there is a creator of our amazing world?
A good month - may we be granted the true and complete redemption by the Messiah King soon and immediately from Mish !!!
This story is not new (or at least not exclusive): as Zvi Yanai points out in his book "Journey to Nature's Consciousness" (p. 291), Natalie Angier described in 1995 in her book The Beauty and the Beastly: New Views on the Nature of Life, two almost identical worms From the genetic point of view that start their lives in the stomachs of mice. One causes the mouse to run around restlessly and thus it exposes itself to the danger of being eaten by birds of prey, in whose body the worm passes into its adult phase. The second causes the mouse to be sleepy and thus to be easy prey for carnivorous mammals in whose bodies the parasitic worm passes into its adult phase. The innovation in the article on the NewScientist website is in the description of the mechanism used by the parasite.
It's scary to think that one day he could evolve into humans and make them commit suicide.
Stunning!
Evolution at its best.
The next generation of parasites? Maybe they already existed millions of years ago? Hard to know or guess.
Maybe with the help of this parasitism we can learn something about the mechanism of fear.