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Pastimes : The Boxing Ring Revived -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ish who wrote (7179)	12/7/2003 12:16:34 PM
From: average joe	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 7720

Well that was one or more very good reasons for not having a cat in the house. "Cats are carriers of the toxoplasma parasite some may have developed an extraordinary power to manipulate behaviour. One third of Britons carry the toxoplasma parasite in their brain. Its natural home is the cat and it's spread in cats' faeces. It can be picked up by any mammal, from rats to cattle. The main way we get it is by eating undercooked meat (which is why 80% of the French are estimated to have it, with their love of rare meat). Once we have it we have it for life, there's no way we can get rid of it. Research shows it somehow manipulates rats' behaviour - it makes rats attracted to cats - their natural predator, so they're more likely to be eaten by a cat and the parasite can complete its life cycle. For years scientists thought it had no effect on our behaviour, but now the parasite's changing their minds. Recent research suggests that people with toxyplasma have slower reaction times than those without and are also more than twice as likely to be involved in a traffic accident than those who aren't carrying the parasite."