Cat People: A Threat or a Menace?

This article is the most interesting thing I've read in a while. Especially since it confirms my existing biases. I've been telling everyone for a while that you can't trust cat people. This adds to that speculation.

So, apparently there's a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii. It lives in the guts of cats, where it lays eggs, which are pooped out of the cats. Rats then eat the poop and the eggs, which are hatched inside the rat. Somehow the infant Toxoplasma has to get back into the cats' bellies. How do they do this?

Rats have an innate fear of cats. However the toxoplasma infects the brains of the rats causing them to lose this fear, and they are therefore more likely to be eaten.

People in lab coats* have done research on toxoplasma infection and have discovered that the way to put the fear of cat back into these rats is to give them anti-schizophrenia drugs. That these work as well as drugs that treat toxoplasma infection.

I don't suppose anyone can know how a rat's brain really works or how a schizophrenic rat would compare to your garden variety rat. The only thing we can surmise is that toxoplasma infection probably does something to humans as well.

This is not to say that people become full-blown schizo when they're around cats, although I don't know that we can be certain of that at this time. But it's doing something.

The safest thing, if you know anyone who owns cats -- especially more than two cats, and double especially if one of their cats has a military rank (e.g. Colonel Higgenbottom) -- would be to write that person out of your life completely. Stop returning phone calls. And if you have to be in the presence of one of these people, make sure there aren't any sharp objects within reach.

And if you have cats yourself, you should see your doctor immediately and give serious thought to murdering your cats. In a humane way, of course.

Read the whole article first, though.

* I was going to say "They've", but I'm trying to break myself of these dangling pronouns. Who is "they"? What kind of people are "they"? What do "they" daydream about? Do "they" drink imported beer, microbrew, or do "they" just stick with the good ol' fashioned domestic macrobrew? I have no idea. But I have a very good guess as to what they wear to work.