A very curious parasite toxin found in cats🐈 & mice 🐁 made by Toxoplasma gondii that cause mice to lose the fear of cats—allowing the mice to be eaten. The parasite also linked in humans to behavior changes, schizophrenia & car accidents. Mother Nature👇 nature.com/articles/natur…
2) what is fascinating is this—“More surprising was the situation four months after infection. (After) provoking an effective immune response, allowing the mice to overcome the infection. After four months, it was undetectable in the mouse brain… but…”
3) “the mice remained as unperturbed by cat odour. “Long after (parasite is gone from brain), we still see its behavioural effect,” 📍This suggests that the behavioural change could be due to a specific, hard-wired alteration in brain structure… and cannot be reversed” 👀
4) “Joanne Webster, a parasite epidemiologist who co-discovered the fear-negating effects of Toxoplasma in 🐀, highlights the worrying implication that if the behavioural changes of Toxoplasma-caused schizophrenia are fixed, treatments… might have no effect” 👀
5) That said, “However, she is not yet convinced of the link between Toxoplasma infections and schizophrenia. Her findings may actually weaken that link, because they seem to provide evidence against the dopamine hypothesis.”
6) “She notes that Toxoplasma infections are common around the world, but their prevalence varies by region, whereas schizophrenia rates are consistent at around 1% globally.“
7) But again, the craziest part of all this is that mice 🐁 though tricked by the toxin to not fear cat, still retain their newfound lack of fear of cats even after the parasite is cleared from their bodies!!! The brain change is fixed after the poisoning! journals.plos.org/plosone/articl…
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📍HUGE—Covid may cause greater loss of gray matter and tissue damage in the brain 🧠 than naturally occurs in people who have not been infected with the virus, a new study finds—the first study with both brain scans before and after #COVID19 infection. 🧵 nytimes.com/2022/03/07/hea…
2) The study, involving people aged 51 to 81, found shrinkage and tissue damage primarily in brain areas related to sense of smell; some of those areas are also involved in other brain functions, the researchers said.
3) “To me, this is pretty convincing evidence that something changes in brains of this overall group of people with Covid,” said Dr. Serena Spudich, chief of neurological infections and global neurology at the Yale School of Medicine,
I have a few thoughts about selfishness, COVID, bullying, and life…
(Note—not an “expert” in life—just as a fellow human)🧵
2) First of all, #CovidIsNotOver — not by a long shot. #BA2 is still creeping up slowly (or quickly) in most of the world. I’ll do a #BA2 update soon, but you only have to look at HK to see how bad it can get. Their hospitals are low on oxygen too. But I’m not here about COVID.
3) I’m here to talk about empathy… or the relative lack thereof. People are often too selfish. They think just because THEY are low risk / don’t have vulnerable family, that thus others are too. And thus, ‘why should I do XYZ to reduce transmission if I’m healthy’—it’s selfish.
Yes I’m aware it should be spelled #Zelenskyy. But maybe @TrueFactsStated can add another sub sign under it — if Russian security doesn’t remove it, haha.
Not smart—Russian forces have fired rockets at a physics institute in Kharkiv 🇺🇦 which hold 37 nuclear ☢️ fuel cells & a nuclear reactor. Ukraine says it risks a “large-scale ecological disaster”. Please, for the love of god, stop this. #UkraineRussiaWar independent.co.uk/news/world/eur…
Meanwhile, Russian military have retaken control of the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, at #Zaporizhzhya, according to @iaeaorg
UPDATE— Head of the International Atomic Energy Agency says he is “extremely concerned” because Russian forces have restricted 🚫 communications with the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plants nytimes.com/live/2022/03/0…
Chilling video—“Immediately stop firing. You’re endangering the safety of the whole world”, the Zaporizhzhia nuclear ☢️ power plant begs Russian troops shelling the area. “The operations could be damaged—we will not be able to restore it.” #UkraineRussia