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Biogeoscience
When
infected by thorny-headed worms (the orange spot), gammarids swim
toward light. At the water's surface they become easy prey for birds,
the next creature the worm needs to infect to complete its life cycle.
Copyright 2012 The New York Times Company |
9 comments:
Wow to take over and turn a spider into a zombie, if they found the gene and figured out how to do it, they could have FRANKENSTIEN or the living dead! Zombie Apocalypse. Not good. but it is cool that it can help mental deseases. If they figured out how they work they could really cause some damage, or help a lot of people.
Sophia said,
I have to say is that this is like Frankenstein that a parasite takes over a dead spider and makes it live. I am going to have a pet spider. From Venice, Italy or Paris, France depending on what day you read this, goodby from Sophia.
This is amazing. The spider does everything for this wasp. It provides food and shelter. I read about how wasps eat spiders' organs, saving the vital ones for last, so it stays alive while being devoured. The wasp now just uses the spider like a tool. It takes it food and shelter. If we could do it, we could control someone else to do our "nefarious bidding" :). The host would just do anything we wanted it to do.
This is really cool. I agree with Jahan that it is fascinating that the spider does everything for the wasp. I personally dont really like spiders, but I still feel bad for the spiders. The spiders have the parasite and then they waste their life working for the parasite. The spider usually makes a web that is messy. while then the parasite is in the spider the spider makes a protection web for the parasite. I think it is fascinating how something so small has such a big impact. I also think it is really awesome that the caterpillar can get the parasite and go up a tree, then explode then the parasite spreads on the creatures under the tree. Caterpillars dont usually do high up on trees, and the zombie caterpillars always eat which is unusual for a normal caterpillar to eat a lot. I also think that the parasite that goes inside a sea creature is fascinating. How the parasite forces its host to go to a place where the predator can easy catch prey. It is really weird how the parasite wants to die in a way, if it commits suicide. The parasite also sometimes makes the host think that light is dark and dark in light, which makes the host swim up thinking it is swimming down. Ajai Vyas and Glenn McConkey have both conducted an experiment on this topic, both of them are legit. Glenn said "It produces an enzyme that speeds the production of the neurotransmitter dopamine, which influences mammals’ motivation and how they value rewards. Adding extra dopamine might make Toxoplasma’s hosts more curious and less fearful." --the article(p. 2). While Ajai has a different answer. The scientist said "Infected male rats, he found, make extra testosterone. This change makes the males more attractive to females, and when they mate the males spread the parasite to females." so the males pass it to the females. I would like to know which one is accurate. Is it Ajai or Glenn? Is there any controlling parasites that can harm humans? If so is there anyway avoid it? Where are these parasites mostly found?
Cool! I wonder why bugs can do it but humans cannot do it on others. I know after reading this article, many people are going to get interested in how to control someone. The idea of doing this is kind of fun. To the point, the wasps are really clever. This would all be fixed if spiders were in groups. If one was acting strange, the rest would figure it out. But, you cannot stop natural animal bonding. Great article!
Wow. Just wow. The fact that wasps can control spiders and tiny little parasites can control cats? Talk about minority strength. Even so, I feel bad for the things they infect. I think that these parasites could drive a species extinct. For example, the baculovirus could kill off gypsy moths, and all other insects that are susceptible, if it infected enough caterpillars. The parasite seems like it's on its way to doing just that, especially because it's actually being "sprinkled liberally" (p. 1).
Jahan talked about learning to do this kind of thing on humans. I get what Jahan means, but it's a little worrying. I mean, to have total control over what a person does? Too much power is bad, and that is definitely too much power. And think about the person you're controlling. They probably have friends and a family who loves them. Would you take all that away? Their family would never live a truly happy life. They would always be haunted by the knowledge that their son, daughter,husband or wife was a "zombie" without a will of their own. But then again, maybe we should figure out how to use it on humans. Like the article said, these tweaks could help mental diseases. Still, you would have to make sure that all doctors who used it were trustworthy.
I think the use of the word zombie may have been confusing. These parasites do NOT take over a dead body and make it live again. They take over a LIVING body and mess up its brain, controlling it. The infected organism has no will, like a zombie, but it has NOT been resurrected.
I think that caterpillars do eat a lot,they just stop at night. Infected caterpillars can't stop. They just keep searching for food. Yet the article says that the caterpillars dissolve once they get on top of the trees. How the caterpillars dissolve? Last time I checked, you needed acid or something to make living matter dissolve. Also, the thorny-headed worm is interesting. I like how it changes the host's perception, so that it sees light as dark a vice versa. Once the gammarid is eaten the parasite travels directly to the bird that eats it. I think that both scientist are right! Just because they said different things doesn't mean one of them has to be wrong, because they aren't opposites.
What does all this do for the parasites? I understand the wasp. By controlling the spider, it gains a protective home that it couldn't have made itself. But the thorny-headed worm and the baculovirus just seem to follow a destructive cycle. Also, I've heard about plant parasites, like mistletoe and strangler figs. Do those do anything like this or just take the nutrients and kill the plant?
I thought that this article was really cool. Happy New Year from Guatamala! (I'm home now, but I was in Guatamala on January 1st.)
My dad told me about this towards the end of last year, except it was just a little different. What my dad told me was that there were these worms that were inside a rat's stomach. These worm could ONLY survive in the conditions of a cat's stomach, so it would make the rat go in front of the cat, tampering with the cat so that the cat would come and eat the rat. This worm would go to anything to get into the cat's stomach, even if it meant making the rat "commit suicide". Once the rat is captured, the worm is in he right conditions for proper life. If the cat with the worms were to somehow (it's not very hard) transfer the worms/worm eggs into a human, the human would go crazy and commit suicide. I think that this is very unfortunate, but it's cool to know what these small creatures can do to a living thing A LOT bigger than it. If humans were able to figure out how to do this, this could change everything! There might be no wars due to "brainwashing", or there might be bigger wars if the opponent country figured out what the other country was doing and wanted revenge on their people. I think that this would be something to experiment more on, and that this was a really cool article! It really caught my attention!
My dad told me about this towards the end of last year, except it was just a little different. What my dad told me was that there were these worms that were inside a rat's stomach. These worm could ONLY survive in the conditions of a cat's stomach, so it would make the rat go in front of the cat, tampering with the cat so that the cat would come and eat the rat. This worm would go to anything to get into the cat's stomach, even if it meant making the rat "commit suicide". Once the rat is captured, the worm is in he right conditions for proper life. If the cat with the worms were to somehow (it's not very hard) transfer the worms/worm eggs into a human, the human would go crazy and commit suicide. I think that this is very unfortunate, but it's cool to know what these small creatures can do to a living thing A LOT bigger than it. If humans were able to figure out how to do this, this could change everything! There might be no wars due to "brainwashing", or there might be bigger wars if the opponent country figured out what the other country was doing and wanted revenge on their people. I think that this would be something to experiment more on, and that this was a really cool article! It really caught my attention!
This is very interesting. A parasite that can take over another insect's mind to do its bidding. I think that these parasites are very smart. I agree with Emilynne, i believe that calling these infected insects zombies is incorrect because if the insect is dead, there will be no mind for the parasite to possess. I wonder if one day, a large amount of humans will be possessed by the parasite.
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