vectors and victors

Longtime readers of the blog know that every now and then I feature the latest speculation about Toxoplasma gondii and its potential influence on human behavior, and... the World Cup?

Rank the top 25 FIFA team countries by Toxo rate and you get, in order from the top: Brazil (67 percent), Argentina (52 percent), France (45 percent), Spain (44 percent), and Germany (43 percent). Collectively, these are the teams responsible for eight of the last 10 World Cup overall winners. Spain, the only one of the group never to have won a cup, is no subpar outlier—the Spaniards have the most World Cup victories of any perpetual runner-up.

What is going on here? Does Toxo really make people better at soccer?

The relationship is neither linear nor foolproof. Italy managed to win the World Cup in 2006, despite its relatively average infection rate of 33 percent. Certain African countries plagued with public health problems have astronomical Toxo rates. Yet the heavily infected players of Ghana, Gabon (71 percent), and the Ivory Coast (60 percent) have not yet managed to win a single cup. On the other end, England (6 percent), the U.S. (12 percent), and Japan (6 percent) are pretty OK at soccer yet have some of the lowest rates in the world.

Read the whole thing for the rest of the nuances and caveats.

Speculation is speculation, and this one, I'll say, kicks its hypothesis a little too far past the post.

Although something has to explain Bill Simmons' recent unabashed and unabated soccer love.

cat people in trouble again

Judith Ann Lawson of Olympia...

...was jailed for investigation of 20 counts of felony animal cruelty after animal control officers found 20 Persian cats locked up in cages inside the garage of her home.

The animals were found living in filth. Feces covered their bodies. In some cases, the weight of the hardened waste pieces had caused their heavily-matted fur to tear right off of their bodies.

One of the cats was found covered with open and infected sores. The cat also had a broken tail and severe respiratory problems that affected its breathing.

Test her for Toxoplasma gondii. Test these brothers, too. There are too many cases like this; it seems quite evident to me that living with too many cats is an invitation to dementia, and my hunch is that Toxoplasma is the cause. But I'm no researcher, and can't prove my case.

Added: The Olympian has much more detail, placing Lawson in Lacey. Seattle media often miss the distinction.

for the love of a feral cat

Just watched Penn and Teller's take on "Pet Love," which includes a visit with Bonita Berger, a self-described "cat rescuer." She claims to have over twenty cats in residence, but isn't a "hoarder" because she continually gives them up for adoption. Still, if my theory holds, her zeal for saving feral felines places her at risk of developing full-onset cat-ladyism.

In the episode, Berger notes that her social life has dwindled to nothingness, since feeding, injecting, cleaning, and otherwise babying cats is her second occupation. Her house is filled with cats of all shapes and sizes, with litter boxes in various rooms. She sleeps with cats as her blanket. One might attribute this solely to love, but it also allows for a different etiology: infection by Toxoplasma gondii, a zoonotic disease. Feral cats, Berger's specialty, are a major vector. T. gondii has been implicated in an an interesting personality change: a decrease in "novelty seeking," probably caused by altered dopamine concentration.

Is there a connection in Berger's case? I'm not a biologist, psychologist, or physician, so my answer is obvious: I don't know. It should be equally obvious that not all people who rescue feral cats are going to turn into cat ladies--and Berger, though coming across as a little kooky, otherwise looks and sounds healthy. I view her case more as further inspiration to uncover the origin of true cat-ladyism, and its putative connection to Toxoplasma gondii. Paging Dr. Glickman....

no, really, they ought to test cat ladies for Toxoplasma

I'm not kidding. These women--almost always women--are victims of biology. There's something strange, and probably parasitical, going on. If Toxoplasma makes rats abnormally fond of cats, who's to say it, or something like it, isn't to blame when someone hoards hundreds of cats?

Toxoplasma gondii, all you post-Docs looking for ideas. When you discover a cure and your Nobel Prize rolls in, I demand a cat. I mean a cut.



[via Obscure Store]

Toxoplasma gondii, cat ladies, and cultural neuroticism

More research is shedding light on how Toxoplasma gondii works. For those who don't recall, T. gondii is the parasite that causes rats to lose their natural fear of the odor of cat urine, causing them to become meth addicts putting them at risk of being eaten, and thus passing on the parasite to a new host.

One scientist thinks the parasite, which infects half of humanity, could even shape entire cultures through neuroticism and schizophrenia. Not sure about that, but if I were a biologist, I'd round up a sample group of "cat ladies" and see if a profusion of the parasite is to blame for their obsessive cat-hoarding. It's a simple, elegant thesis. Probably simply and elegantly wrong, but worth grant money nonetheless. If there's one thing we need in this world, it's a cure for cat ladies.

Science!

So you bought five-dollar merlot and six-dollar pinot grigio for your wine-and-cheese party, you cheap, elitist, very clever bastard. Cheese makes cheap wines taste the same. (I'd wager there's a similar effect with chocolate and coffee.)

So you doped up on haloperidol to keep your mousy, schizophrenic self from hanging out in wood chips laced with feline urine. Toxoplasma infects 1 in 2 Brits. Never would have guessed.

So you get a special thrill when watching cheaters get their comeuppance. Even better if the comeuppance is an electric shock, and you're male. Is it hard-wired or learned? Who cares? It's sweet revenge!