Tag: rats

Toxoplasma Gondii

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For anyone familiar with the bleak early days of this blog back in November / December last year when the drama of this 2020 was still a thing of science fiction, I mentioned I was reading a book called Gut by Giulia Enders. Well it turns out I’m still reading it. This longevity isn’t because it’s difficult, quite the opposite in fact or boring, also quite the opposite. I just get distracted and either read other things or am too busy, but keep dipping into it when I fancy reading some more. This morning I read a little on Toxoplasma gondii. For anyone Scottish it is simply unimaginable not to be familiar with the film Trainspotting, and for those who are, they will be aware of this bacteria from the character Tommy catching it from his cat before dying from it and heroin. Naturally then this little mini-chapter grabbed my attention.

It turns out it’s actually an incredibly interesting bacteria which considering it’s size can have an enormous affect on it’s host. Cats, not all of course, carry this bacteria and it is spread to humans usually through their faeces in cat litter trays. It can find it’s way onto raw vegetables in your garden if a cat has either done it’s business or died within, as well as through animals such as pigs or chickens when we eat them. The chances of humans contracting toxoplasma are, in percentage terms, about as high as your age and about a third of the global population have them. We’re talking a reasonably high probability and billions of people. They don’t have an overly negative immediate affect on the human body, sometimes creating flu-like symptoms, so not too dissimilar to this virus for many people. Pregnant women though have to be very careful as it can damage the unborn baby and lead to miscarriages. What is fascinating about it though is the affect it has on our behaviour.

A study at Oxford University discovered rats, who would ordinarily and instinctively avoid cats urine, would when infected with toxoplasma not only be fearless of the cats urine but actively stay near it. This bacteria removed certain inhibitors in the rats brain, the bacteria which wanted to exist within the cats gut was offering up the rat, it’s host, as dinner and sacrifice. This tiny bacteria was influencing and arguably controlling the actions of a far larger creature. The rats were indifferent to human, dog and other varieties of urine, the rats and their cat loving bacteria interested in cats piss alone.

Like anything of this ilk proved on rats it wasn’t long before it was tested out on humans. She refers to a large scale experiement in which 3,890 soldiers from the Czech army were tested for toxoplasma and then over the next year the numbers of accidents they were involved in was recorded and analysed. It turned out those with the bacteria, and particularly those with rhesus negative blood type, were involved in the highest number of accidents. It turns out, and I’m going to crudely paraphrase this, that when infected the immune system activates an enzyme called IDO which breaks down a substance the invaders like to eat, forcing them to become dormant. Unfortunately this substance is also vital in the creation of serotonin, a lack of which is linked to depression and various anxiety disorders, as well as lethargy and general indifference. IDO is also highly activated during pregnancy, hence the link, and this and the immune systems response can sometimes treat the baby as a semi-alien which leads to miscarriages.

To take this further, the toxoplasma bacteria hide away in a few places but predominantly the amygdala section of the brain. This is also the area in which our fear receptors exist. This is also seemingly the part of the brain responsible for the decision making process, if you’re a parasite attempting to promote self-destructive tendencies, this is probably the best place to exist. Humans with toxoplasma were also found to have a different response to cats urine than those without, men especially seemed to prefer it with women less so. Interestingly the proportion of carriers among schizophrenics is about twice that among non-schizophrenics.

Science and medicine move slowly, unless you’re creating vaccines for pandemics of course, so it’ll still be a long time before these factors are tested for regularly and this understanding of behaviour and bacteria become common practice. It does though make you think about certain behaviours in people that just seem illogical and insane. Why someone could be so reckless is now slightly less inexplicable. Or even perhaps why you yourself have done so many stupid things over the years. I’m not suggesting we all go out and sniff cats urine to check our response of course, but this does open possibilities for how we view and understand behavioural patterns. This is just one parasite and if it’s possible for this one to create these suicidal and reckless tendencies, how do we know other bacteria don’t also affect our behaviours. There is so much we just don’t understand about our bodies yet we behave as if we know it all. The gut and the varieties of little enzymes and bacteria within can change everything about us yet we give it next to no attention. I am barely even a layman in regards to these things but it is exciting that we are starting to really see some movement and understanding of things within us that could potentially change our lives for the better. Who knows, if we can positively change our own behaviours with this, maybe science could save the whole world in a most highly unexpected of ways too. Either that or the cats may just take over the world after all.

Humane Rats

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

Today has been a day of discovery, I learnt a little about rats. These little critters seem to provoke the most remarkable terror and fear in people. Understandably this probably dates back to a time when we died of bubonic plague, or for those unfamiliar, think of a coronavirus that wiped people out, gave you boils and was spread by rats. However now the chances of catching anything from a rat are rare and you’ve got more chance of being eaten by your cat. Saying that I do remember as a fifteen years old opening the bin in the dark and one jumping out at me, I’m not ashamed to admit I screamed and ran away. Doesn’t make it any less irrational though.

It appears though rats are pretty cool once you get over yourself and get to know them. They laugh when tickled which comes out as a type of ultrasonic chirp. Apparently they bond with their ticklers and search them out to continue playing with, they’ve even taught them how to play hide and seek. They enjoy themselves. They’re capable of reliving past memories and planning routes for future use. They reciprocally trade goods with each other and have a system of favours in which the favour need not necessarily be repaid in the same currency. They respond with something close to regret when they make the wrong choice, have been taught how to use tools to access out of reach food and have been able to outperform humans in some learning tasks.

Remarkably they have shown signs of empathy too. They refused to press levers to access food if it resulted in another rat getting an electric shock, as well as walk down certain tunnels in a maze if the result was an electric shock to another, this became extra prevalent had the mouse experienced the shock themselves already and knew what was coming for the other rat. Similarly if they themselves have experienced being drenched in water they’re more likely to rescue another rat from drowning and will rescue a trapped rat when they themselves can escape to safety. Even humans don’t do that, maybe we need to readdress this word humane we seem to have elevated onto a pedestal. Rats seem to care about each other more than we do.

In a time long past now, we as a species used to commit the most heinous of experiments on chimpanzees until we realised they are incredibly similar to us. There are now laws protecting them but there are still none protecting the rat. They have decided they didn’t learn enough from experimenting on chimpanzees and have now replicated many psychological experiments on rats too. They have raised some rats away from their mothers and in social isolation, the result being a shrinkage in the area of the brain responsible for emotion and affiliation. They managed to create mentally ill, traumatised and emotionally suffering rats. While we admit they’re close enough for us to use as models for human psychopathologies, the accepted wisdom is that they’re far enough away for us to relate to them and empathise, unlike chimpanzees and other primates who remind us of humans.

The rat genome has been fully sequenced for fifteen years now which has led to major advances in our understanding of how genomes work. We have made breakthroughs in our understanding of cardiovascular disease and obesity, and because their social nature mimics our own, behavioural and psychological studies too. Researching on rats clearly has benefits and many people would use this as justification for the continuation of such work. We understand the moral argument otherwise we would just do this testing on humans, we don’t even use chimpanzees anymore. We may have learnt to fear rats and I’m in no rush to cuddle one but they’ve been shown to be sentient beings with rich emotional lives. If we are such an advanced species why do we continue to suppress our own emotional bond with other sentient beings. Maybe that’s what advanced is, the ability to switch it on and off when it suits us. Perhaps it’s time for a new and updated definition of humane.

Good Versus Evil

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Yesterdays piece is apparently the one hundredth on this blog which understandably I’m reasonable pleased with. There’s a good chance you’ll struggle to find many things I’ve stuck to for three months, especially as, or maybe it’s because, it has been a daily exercise. It seems only fitting then to go with the suggestion I made yesterday and discuss the concept of good and bad with this being piece 101, fitting indeed if you ask Winston in 1984. I’ll not be discussing rats in cages fixed to your face but more so the fact that although I clearly described something as good and bad yesterday I am generally loathed to do so.

It is an easy thing to do to describe something as either good or bad. It immediately gives the recipient of this information a general understanding of what we mean. If you call someone a bad man it is pretty clear that you are suggesting in someway they are responsible for something or have a character that could be described as negative. We have been conditioned by society through our education, our parents, movies, television, religion to have a general understanding of this notion. Typically in all these examples, in particular movies, although arguable they’re just the outcome of centuries of religious influence, we see the battle of good versus evil, with good usually overcoming some odds stacked against them to be victorious. In films it can be portrayed as the action hero overcoming a larger force of bad guys, usually represented by whoever is the political enemy of the time, think communists to Islamists to probably Chinese very soon. I haven’t read the Bible but have been brought up in a Christian country and therefore am aware of the general attempt to portray this good versus evil battle throughout the whole text. The absolutist necessity to portray Jesus as a righteous saviour over all the evil in the world, but he can only save you if you join him. It all comes back to power and contemporary politics too is riddled with this. Join us, we are the good guys who are fighting those other guys. They’re bad, it’s okay to kill them…and so on.

While all that seems pretty obvious it is still remarkable how successful it can be at manipulating people. We are so triggered by this concept of good versus evil that we fall for it in such an easy way. It is why despite the fact I dislike it I still used it in yesterdays piece as it was an easy way to get my point across. The issue though lies more with what is good and what is evil. People will always use the concept to manipulate people but we seem oblivious in these moments to step back and actually question what is bad and why that is a bad thing. Not only that but clearly one person’s good can be different to another’s, who are we really to say what is right and wrong about someone when it is clearly such a subjective thing. I am aware it would be better to discuss this after spending a few hours reading some essays on morality and ethics but like each piece I just start writing, wing it and see what happens. There may be a lack of depth to my point but ultimately with the knowledge that one thing can be credibly both good and bad to different people, as well as everything in between, how can we legitimately label something so without giving it real thought. It is such a simplified take on the world and that makes it easy to manipulate of course, but for this reason we must be so careful about throwing these two words around. Really who am I to say somethings bad; I’m no god, I barely even understand ethics and like everyone am prone to bouts of hypocrisy. To know ones fallible yet proceed with authority anyway, oh to be human, oh to misunderstand balance.

Corrupt Politicians

Hamar WilliamsLeave a comment

I have just been listening to a podcast on which the subject of the American Democratic candidates were discussed. I try not to talk too much about another countries politics because I am not from that country and there’s a chance I may miss some nuance I would otherwise get were I from there. There is one element of politics though that we can freely talk about no matter which country is the subject of discussion. The issue is corruption. Now I accept politics is not unique in suffering from this ailment, all countries have corruption in different forms. I’ve heard since Tuesday that the World Championship Scotch Pie Awards are fixed, not blatantly but there’s a reason the same few bakers seem to win everything. That is corruption. When people profess to being good moral honourable people though, they should be held up to higher standards. I will often criticise charities more than companies when they both do the same thing; there is no pretence with capitalism once you scrape below it’s wafer thin veil but the aid sector pretends something different.

The same situation exists with politicians and I can see why people like Trump because he doesn’t pretend to be a good guy, his whole act is about being a prick and that must be refreshing. People are tired of politicians, they don’t trust them and rightly the establishment is being called out and challenged. Trump of course is the establishment, just as Boris Johnson is, which shows the con job that has been pulled in both countries. However it’s when people like Elizabeth Warren come out with things like this absurd claim that Bernie Sanders told her in a private conversation that he didn’t believe a woman could be President. After giving it the whole good person who cares about people act for months, it is a legitimate response to want to tell her to go fuck herself. The mainstream media have jumped on the story claiming it to be fact, half of the supposed witnesses where not even there. It’s a hatchet job because he is threatening to upset the Democrats and actually get the nomination. It’s like Britain, the Neoliberals in the Labour party actively tried to sabotage the party and prevent it winning rather than see Jeremy Corbyn be elected Prime Minister. Elizabeth Warren has exposed herself as a dirty liar, she is corrupt and after playing the saint who cares card for so long she deserves the inevitable fallout. She doesn’t stand a chance of beating Trump, neither does Joe Biden, who is also corrupt as this Ukraine investigation exposed. Who knows about Bloomberg, but just ask Trump, you don’t get to become a New York real estate billionaire without embracing a little corruption along the way.

Yet we still follow these people. We accept them as our leaders, allow them to take all they want, subject us to a life of servility while not even leaving us with our dignity. Are we scared to stop and say we’ve had enough? Are we so scared of losing our lousy lot in life? Do we fear those below us taking our position? Has the old carrot lie of one day being them really deceived us that much? We vote for laws to protect billionaires but not poor people. That is fucked up. We will never become billionaires, it just won’t happen, we are not voting to protect our future selves. Let’s stop accepting and being complicit in their raping of society and the hurt that causes. Look after your neighbour and your neighbour will look after you, it’s time to come back together as a community. Having looked after politicians and billionaires all these years it seems there’s a distinct lack of them watching our back. Yet despite there being no genuine prospect of change we carry on making the same choice and expecting a different outcome. We continue to imagine that it will be all fine with this new one, he looks like the kind of guy who could lead this country and give us the life he’s promising. He’s definitely not like that other fella…what’s his name again?