This Is Your Brain on Parasites: How Tiny Creatures Manipulate Our Behavior and Shape Society by Kathleen McAuliffe
I began reading this latest book on parasites which can manipulate the behavior of animals as well as humans.
Parasites—insofar as they received any attention—were almost exclusively the domain of veterinarians or medical researchers seeking to stem the tide of epidemics like malaria and cholera. Few people were concerned about their ecological impact, much less the possibility that they could boss around more estimable animals.
—The Cat Parasite Possibly Manipulating Your Behavior — And Other Parasitic Wonders
Big Think-video:
https://youtu.be/QhWsDBd7q5M
PARASITIC MANIPULATION MAY PLAY a prominent role in determining human population size as well. Some of the world's worst scourges are transmitted by bloody-feeding insects whose behavior may in turn be controlled by microscopic infectious agents [...]
The better we grasp the nuts and bolts of parasite's manipulations, the more likely we'll be to succeed inn throwing a wrench in the works or, better yet, in finding a way to turn their powers against them.
Not just medecine but also agriculture could benefit from such expertise.
On another level... Over a decade ago, when German pharmaceutical researchers discovered that several varieties of flowers laced their nectar with caffeine. Gerladine Wright, an american neuroethologist (Newcastle Univ., England), came across a report of their finding and was dumbfounded. Caffeine in seeds and leaves is nothing new—it's toxic and bitter-tasting to insects, so often plants use the compound to repel them [...] As she read on, however, she noticed that the amount of caffeine in nectar was much less than in other parts of the plant, which suggested bees might not even be able to detect it. For years Wright had been studying bees with the goal of understanding the mechanism uderpinning human learning and memory because at molecular level, bee's brain are quite similar to our own. { Skip}
She'd trained them to recognize a single floral scent and measured how well they could remember it in the next day. But in the wild, bees jump from flower to flower every thirty seconds, which means they have to remember hundred of scents over the span of a day or two. In human terms, she said, "it's comparable to cramming for a exam, which requires you learn a whole bunch of imformation in very little time, versus studying less information over a longer period of time, when people remember much better. [...]
The bees did abysmally without caffeine, but when they got the normal dose in their nectar “they performed almost perfectly. It was a stunning result. I think this is the first case where we see a pharmacological manipulation of an animal by a plant.”
Based on body size, Wright calculates that the insects consume a dose of the drug roughly equivalent to what a human gets from a weak cup of coffee.
Could flowers be manipulating us too? "Probably" as a side effect of evolution. Because the human brain shares common building blocks with that of bees, according to Wright (a researcher in this field), caffeine influences our cognitive functioning too [...] —"Caffeine is the most widely used drug in the world, and bees have been consuming it tens of millions of year before we showed up on the planet".
As wright wryly notes, we like how caffeine make us feel, so "you could say that these flowering plants manipulate us by getting us to grow vast plantation of them".
I began reading this latest book on parasites which can manipulate the behavior of animals as well as humans.
Parasites—insofar as they received any attention—were almost exclusively the domain of veterinarians or medical researchers seeking to stem the tide of epidemics like malaria and cholera. Few people were concerned about their ecological impact, much less the possibility that they could boss around more estimable animals.
Based on a wildly popular Atlantic article: an astonishing investigation into the world of microbes, and the myriad ways they control how other creatures — including humans — act, feel, and think
As we are now discovering, parasites — microbes that cannot thrive and reproduce without another organism as a host — are shockingly sophisticated and extraordinarily powerful. In fact, a plethora of parasites affect our behavior in ways we have barely begun to understand. In this mind-bending book, McAuliffe reveals the eons-old war between parasites and other creatures that is playing out in our very own bodies. And more surprising still, she uncovers the decisive role that parasites may have played in the rise and demise of entire civilizations. Our obsession with cleanliness and our experience of disgust are both evolutionary tools for avoiding infection, but they evolved differently for different populations. Political, social, and religious differences among societies may be caused, in part, by the different parasites that prey on us.In the tradition of Jared Diamond’s Guns, Germs, and Steel and Neil Shubin’s Your Inner Fish, This Is Your Brain on Parasites is both a journey into cutting-edge science and a revelatory examination of what it means to be human.
—The Cat Parasite Possibly Manipulating Your Behavior — And Other Parasitic Wonders
Big Think-video:
https://youtu.be/QhWsDBd7q5M
PARASITIC MANIPULATION MAY PLAY a prominent role in determining human population size as well. Some of the world's worst scourges are transmitted by bloody-feeding insects whose behavior may in turn be controlled by microscopic infectious agents [...]
The better we grasp the nuts and bolts of parasite's manipulations, the more likely we'll be to succeed inn throwing a wrench in the works or, better yet, in finding a way to turn their powers against them.
Not just medecine but also agriculture could benefit from such expertise.
On another level... Over a decade ago, when German pharmaceutical researchers discovered that several varieties of flowers laced their nectar with caffeine. Gerladine Wright, an american neuroethologist (Newcastle Univ., England), came across a report of their finding and was dumbfounded. Caffeine in seeds and leaves is nothing new—it's toxic and bitter-tasting to insects, so often plants use the compound to repel them [...] As she read on, however, she noticed that the amount of caffeine in nectar was much less than in other parts of the plant, which suggested bees might not even be able to detect it. For years Wright had been studying bees with the goal of understanding the mechanism uderpinning human learning and memory because at molecular level, bee's brain are quite similar to our own. { Skip}
She'd trained them to recognize a single floral scent and measured how well they could remember it in the next day. But in the wild, bees jump from flower to flower every thirty seconds, which means they have to remember hundred of scents over the span of a day or two. In human terms, she said, "it's comparable to cramming for a exam, which requires you learn a whole bunch of imformation in very little time, versus studying less information over a longer period of time, when people remember much better. [...]
The bees did abysmally without caffeine, but when they got the normal dose in their nectar “they performed almost perfectly. It was a stunning result. I think this is the first case where we see a pharmacological manipulation of an animal by a plant.”
Based on body size, Wright calculates that the insects consume a dose of the drug roughly equivalent to what a human gets from a weak cup of coffee.
Could flowers be manipulating us too? "Probably" as a side effect of evolution. Because the human brain shares common building blocks with that of bees, according to Wright (a researcher in this field), caffeine influences our cognitive functioning too [...] —"Caffeine is the most widely used drug in the world, and bees have been consuming it tens of millions of year before we showed up on the planet".
As wright wryly notes, we like how caffeine make us feel, so "you could say that these flowering plants manipulate us by getting us to grow vast plantation of them".
I have noticed though people who drink toooo much coffe are never sober, and less apt to listen in context of conversation or exchanges.
