May 14, 2013 • 39 mins
Atlanta is in shambles. Parasite-infected humans wander the streets, stinking of death and attacking everyone in sight. Meanwhile Robert and Julie hold up in the HSW headquarters to shed light on the so-called "zombie outbreak" by highlighting real-world examples of minds hijacked and bodies zombified by tiny parasitic organisms.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
My name is Robert lamp This is Julie Douglas, and
this is this is a different episode that we're doing
here today. Normally, we we distract you with with the
(00:26):
you know, various cool things that are going on in
the world scientifically speaking, and today is very much a
reactionary episode. Well it's kind of a distraction for us, yeah,
because we're we're here in Atlanta, stuck in the house
Stuff Works office. Um, I can't really get home. The
highways or are just a complete parking lot of you know,
cars are not moving. The Marta tracks have completely shut down.
(00:49):
Some people were trying to to walk the tracks through
the tunnels, and I believe that is meeting with varying
degrees of success. But a lot of people are calling
what's going on now as the outbreak, and we're going
to use the term zombie, but but really it is
a it's a it's a misleading term, as we'll discuss. Well,
the media keeps throwing it around because I mean the
(01:10):
effects of this parasite seems very zombie like. But look, guys,
we realized that you may not even actually hear this episode. UM,
we don't know when you'll hear it. Think if you
do hear it, things might have changed since this recording
that it's made first, and we're just trying to document
what's going on here in Atlanta. Yeah, so I'm gonna
I'm gonna just run through some of the facts, some
(01:32):
of the things we know about what's going on right now.
There's a lot of misinformation on out there. Hopefully if
if you were in the area that's affected, which seems
to be largely um uh confined to the Atlanta area
and a few other parts of the of the Southeast,
then hopefully you're listening to to uh you know, your
local radio, trying to find reliable TV signals. But we
(01:54):
do know that a severe zombie outbreak has occurred in
the Atlanta area. These these bombie packs are roaming the
city UH generally pursued by buzzards UH and coyotes occasionally raccoons. UH.
They are attracted by the smell of the king flesh
and UM. It was actually it was at first reported
(02:16):
as as a flash mob parody of the Walking Dead,
because as we are, Walking Dead is filmed here in Atlanta.
But no, it's the real deal, apparently. Yeah, and and
certainly that the pop culture idea of the zombie is
is something to take into account here, because take The
Walking Dead for example. The characters in that show are
dealing with zombies or walkers, and they seem to be
dealing with it outside of the pop culture idea of
(02:40):
the zombie. Like they don't seem to have any preconceived
notions about walking dead and walkers and zombies and what
have you. But but we have to contend to contend
with that. So again, these infected individuals are roaming the city.
They are they they are behaving violently. They are striking
out against uh really any kind of of non infected
(03:02):
individual that they're encountering. Um. Meanwhile, everyone else is either
holding up in their homes if and this is definitely
the thing to do, hold up in your homes. The
infected individuals are not going to be able to access
your home. They're not gonna be able to figure out locks.
So if you're locked up, you're good. If you're going
out and trying to engage with them, that is where
the danger comes into play. Because again, everyone's been watching
(03:23):
all these zombie programs. We have a certain preconceived notion
of what this is supposed to be, and then what
is allowed. You have individuals that are behaving violently towards
the infected. Uh. So the hs W employees are fellow
podcasters have have have taken refuge inside the hs W offices. Yeah,
and we're all okay, but I mean there are some
(03:44):
signs of strain. Um, Josh Clark keeps ripping strips off
his shirt to make Rambo headbands. Yeah, which is fine,
just a little weird. And then Tracy Wilson um has
used her library bar code software and tagged each of
us with a call number. Well, you know, in stressful situations,
people handle things differently. They organize, they do some prep work. Um,
(04:05):
it's understandable. I do wish we could find Ben Bolen um,
so if anyone out there has seen him, UM, let
us know. Um other things that we know. The main
CDC centers for Disease Control compound here in Atlanta has
uh has fallen. Perhaps we're not sure if their communication
system is just out but um, we're not hearing any
(04:26):
word from them. But but this was after they did
release some preliminary findings. The research continues elsewhere, but we
do know that the quote unquote zombies are not undead
but living human specimens whose systems have been hijacked by
a parasitic organism. Right, this is very important, This is
what's This is really the nut of what's going on
right now. Yeah, the parasite seems to reprogram the patient
(04:48):
over a period of hours, uh, gradually introducing skin necrosis
and instilling a shambling gage. So the the the appear
to be rotting, But what is going on here is
the skin itself undergoing necrosis and taking on the appearance
and eventually the odor of rotting flesh. Um, they're shambling,
they're groaning, severely depleted will, and extreme aggressive behavior toward
(05:11):
all other organisms, typified by a desire to claw, bite,
and quote unquote eat human flesh, and a lot of
name calling. There are a lot of name calling zombies,
which I mean, it is funny, but it's not funny.
It's because they want to eat your face. Um, it's
like Don Rickles becoming super aggressive and being sort of
rabies written. Yes, and we'll get to the rabies question
(05:35):
in a bit too, because I know that has been
something that a lot of people have have been bringing up. Um.
The other thing is that popular consumption of zombie fiction
again has prepared everyone to respond in a violent, merciless
nature towards the infected. And this is only escalated the
unrest people see this happening and it it creates just
anarchy in the streets. Well, that's the question right now,
(05:55):
like what is what is the bigger threat here the
unrest or this out? Yes, yeah, that and and certainly
they're they're more than enough guns to go around, which
also complicates the situation. Uh c DC preliminary findings indicate
that the parasite may complete its life cycle within the
body of a scavenging organism of some sort, perhaps coyotes, buzzards,
(06:16):
or maybe even bears. We're not sure. Certainly you have
uh in the situations where bears in other countries are digging,
dig up graveyard corpses and consume them. They're attacked attracted
to the smell of rotting flesh. Uh. And the CDC
also indicates that the parasite is transferable from human to
human via the infected blood and saliva. Now, some of
(06:37):
that is maybe not taking hold of your brains right away.
Exactly how this is working within the life cycle of
the parasite that we're still trying to understand, how it
can how it needs to enter another organism such as
a buzzard such as the coyote or maybe a bear
to complete its life cycle. UM, but then can still
be spread from human to human. Well, in this episode,
(06:58):
what we're going to do in an attempt to try
and understand this unknown single cell parasite that is that
it seems to be causing the situation. We're going to
look at known examples, scientifically chronicled examples of parasitic organisms
that hijack a victim, hijack a host, and uh and
in some cases actually create zombie like behavior in that host.
(07:21):
We're gonna look to these examples and an attempt to
understand what's going on now. Yeah, because I mean, really,
this is the best information we have so far about
how to approach this outbreak in humans. So of course
the rabies thing keeps coming up, Yes, and uh, I
need I need to distress that this is not rabies.
We don't we don't have to worry about this being
(07:41):
a raby situation. UM. Human to human transmissions of rabies
are almost unheard of. UM. The Centers for Disease Control
speculates that it can happen due to sexual contact, kissing,
um organ tissue transplants, etcetera. But for the most part,
humans are actually catching rabies from other animals, from rapid animals,
(08:02):
and and outside of the United States where we only
have one or two, you know, three human rabies cases
a year in humans, between thirty thousand and seventy people
worldwide contract rabies. The thing is is that there's a
correlation with the symptoms of rabies and what we see
outside of our course today. There's the anxiety, confusion, Uh,
(08:26):
what seems like hallucinations, yeah, partial or total put paralysis yeah.
And Uh. The thing is is that with rabies, we
know that this doesn't really take hold of these symptoms
anywhere from like ten days to a year as the
virus incubates in the body. So the question is is
there a way that this rabies virus could have maybe
(08:50):
mutated um well and be responsible for what we see UM.
The CDC is saying no. But but theoretically it has
been proposed in the past that if rabies we were
to to mutate and and and take on flu light symptoms. Essentially,
if you had a hybrid of rabies and the flu
(09:12):
and influenza, then you could have an airborne rabies that
would spread with the would spread faster, and would have
a higher potential to spread from human to human. Now,
virologists at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine
and Florida, Samita Andriansky, she has said that sure she
could imagine a scenario where you could mix rabies with
(09:34):
a flu virus to get airborne transmission, a measled virus
to get personality changes, and cephalitis virus to cook your
brain with a fever, and then increase aggression even more
by throwing in ebola, okay, so that you began to
bleed from your guts. She said, if you combine all
these things, you could get something like a zombie virus.
(09:55):
But she says nature doesn't allow all these things to
happen at the same time. Yeah. It. We're of course,
we're talking in this about theoretical chimera virus is UH,
and this is a big part of bioweaponry UH. The
and the idea that we could take existing pathogens and
and combine them to make something even more devastating. But again, uh,
(10:16):
CDCs told us is not rabies. This is not any
kind of bioterrorism attack or anything of that nature. Um.
And and when it comes to rabies in general, it's
worth noting that, yes, you can look at a list
of symptoms for rabies, and you can you can cherry
pick the symptoms that would make a zombie, but that
does not mean that every human case of rabies is
(10:37):
going to resemble something you saw in a zombie movie,
or resemble what's going on in the world right now. True. True,
But the paralysis, the extreme aggression, these are all things
that again we're seeing. Um. But as you say, this
seems highly unlikely as a cause of the parasite that
has stricken humans right now. On how Stuff Works dot Com,
(10:57):
we have an article by Tracy V. Wilson, uh, which
I understand she's revising right now, over and over and photos,
lots of photos, um, how Zombies Work, where she breaks
down some of the issues with rabies we've already discussed, uh,
the pop culture aspects of zombies, but then also gets
into this, uh, this idea that this the reality of
(11:20):
Haitian zombie powder, which is another thing. We want to
special specify that this is not there's nothing going on
out here in the streets of Atlanta that is related
to Haitian voodoo practices and and sorcery and and uh
in neurotoxins. Right, it's more of a question of bioweapons
and could this happen on a mass scale. And in
(11:40):
order to kind of give you guys an idea of
what we're talking about, we should probably travel back to
night because in nineteen eighty there was a man who
appeared in a rural Haitian village. He claimed to be
Clarvius Narcissa and that he had died in a hospital
in Haiti on March second, nineteen sixty two. Okay, so
in nineteen eighty he comes waltzing in. He described being
(12:02):
conscious but paralyzed during his presumed death. He had even
seen the doctor cover his face with a sheet. And
he claims that a bacoor or a sorcerer had resurrected
him and made him a zombie. And this was a
case that was explored by Dr Wade Davis traveled to
Haiti collected eight samples of the quote unquote zombie powder
(12:23):
that the sorcerers who are using there, and he identified
ingredients uh that contained some of these these common substances,
one being a tetrodotoxin from a pupper fish, toxic substances
from a marine toad, and some irritating substances from a
highla tree frog. Now, the tetrodotoxin definitely causes paralysis and death,
(12:48):
and researchers have documented cases in which people have recovered
from near fatal poisonings with this substance, so they have
maybe seemed to die and then they have come back.
So there's there's the possibility that this substance is the
root cause of the zombie idea in Haitian culture. Well
in some victims of toxin poisoning often remained conscious until
(13:12):
just before death. So that would explain seeing that the
sheet going over your face right, right. But there are
a number of problems and potential problems with Davis's work. UH.
So you have a number of individuals and the scientific
community who have criticized it or even called it fraudulent.
Some of questions in Davis's ethics since the observe the
(13:32):
desecration of graves while gathering ingredients for the powder. UH,
some of questions whether the initial experiments with the powder
were scientific or control, and whether other substances have been
added to the powder being tested. Some allege that samples
of the powder can name little or no TETRAO toxin UH,
and Davis countered by saying that putting the powder into
solution for testing may have destroyed the active ingredients. Some
(13:53):
have charged that Davis repeated his topical applications of the
powder using rats and saw absolutely no effect. And then
some individual studied this several of these alleged zombies and
discovered clear cases of mental illness and mistaken identity. So
that's a lot of there's several grains of salt there
that you have to potentially take into account when you're
considering Davis's work. Well, there's also this idea of how
(14:16):
much could this can really absorb the powder anyway? And
if this were to be used on a mass scale
to create you know, quote unquote zombie humans, Um, how
how would that happen in a way that would make sense? Yeah,
and then you know, the case that we we were
talking about here is an individual wandering into a village
and saying, hey, I died a long time ago, and
(14:36):
I'm I'm not dead, and I'm a little confused, then
I'm a zombie. Um. That's generally not what you see
in zombie movies and and certainly not what we're seeing
on the street where we have peep individuals who are
raising questions about their their status and and and suggesting
that they might be zombies. Sure they might be a
bit confused, right, Um, the people who purportedly have been
(14:58):
ghost with zombie powder, but are right, they're not marauding. Um.
And certainly what we see the examples that we have
seen out there, um, people are not giving their autobiographies
right right, They're they're not. They're just engaging with other
with humans in a very um, a very brutal and
aggressive fashion. So all right, so you know it's worth
(15:20):
I think talking about that. But really what we're concentrating
on today are parasites because this does seem to be
the cause here. So the life of a parasite is
is I think a lot of us know, is one
of eternal pilgrimage and cyclical return. Uh. They must leave home,
which is in a one type of organism, and they
must travel along strange roads through other organisms. Uh, and
(15:43):
then they must eventually return to the place they began.
So you have a primary host, and the primary host
is is where sexual reproduction happens. That is where the
creatures are are generally born, or at least the eggs
are produced. You know. This is this is the home.
And then there is a secondary organism, uh, in which
(16:03):
it must travel. And so you end up with this
this cycle, this life cycle where just as this as
a man leaves his home and he moves to a city,
and then he eventually returns home to die or to
begin life again. It's kind of that kind of cycle
prodigal parasite, yes exactly. Yeah, all right, well, before we
go into another one of nature's examples of this, let's
(16:25):
take a quick break because I mean, assuming everything's okay,
we still need to take a break and acknowledge, uh,
what's going on. Yeah it maybe it may be the
zombie apocalypse for all we know, but it doesn't mean
that we're not going to do advertisements. So we're gonna
take a quick break, and when we come back, we're
gonna get into the examples of parasitic zombies in action
(16:46):
in the natural world. Alright, we're back, and if you're
just joining us. We're in the grips of what many
people were calling a zombie outbreak or even a mild
zombie apocalypse here in the Atlanta area and in certain
pockets of activity throughout the Southeast CDC. Even though they
have apparently lost control of their their main facilities here
(17:10):
in Atlanta, they are still on the case. They're trying
to get to the heart of this um. Law enforcement
is out trying to control both the infected individuals who
are roaming aggressively to the street and also the uninfected
individuals who have watched too many zombie shows and think
they need to take to the street with crude weapons
to battle the infected. It's it's there's a lot of unrest.
(17:30):
If you're listening to it, stay indoors, do not engage
with the infected individuals. But in this episode, we are
talking about cases in nature where a parasite reprograms a
host to its bidding and in some cases creates a
zombie from the host. So these are real world, natural
examples of parasitic zombies in action, which will hopefully help
(17:54):
us to better understand what's going on out there in
the streets. Yeah, and we're going to talk about Toxoplasma galandhy.
We talked about T. Gandhi before, but I think it
bears covering this information again because there's some Again, there's
some really interesting correlations with what we see on the
streets and what we know about T. Gandhi. Um to
Gandhi really illustrates that single fell parasitic organisms are capable
(18:18):
of rewiring human behavior an attempt to complete their life cycle.
We know this. We have seen this in animals and
we've seen in humans. Yeah, Now, toxoplasi plasmosis um T. Gandhi,
as we've discussed before, this is this is something that
lives in the lining of an infected cat's and testines,
and for two or three weeks following infection, millions of
(18:40):
microscopic toxoplasmos so young, which we call osis, ship out
aboard the cats feces, they leave the mother ship cat
aboard the cat poop, and any creature that encounters the
stowaway laden waste is susceptible to accidental infection. And this means,
you know, touching a litter box, infected soil and actuld water,
(19:00):
infected garden veggies, or of course more importantly, rats and
rodents digging around in the poop. Okay, because the then
the idea is that while the cat is the primary host,
then the rat or rodent or squirrel chipment what have
you is the intermediate host where the ossu continue to
develop and uh, and then once they have developed inside
(19:24):
of that rats day, then they want to return to
a cat to complete their life cycle. And they do
this by reprogramming the rats brain. So normally a rat
would say, I smell cat urine. I'm taken off right,
this is a fear signal. They processed this, but it
turns out that, uh, the parasite will actually cause the
(19:46):
rat to crave urine and be attracted to it. And
not only that, the parasite is short circuiting the fear
center in the rats brain. Okay, so this is a
huge behavioral change. It is essentially saying, hey, rat, why
don't you go present yourself to the cat and say here, here, kitty. Exactly? Yeah,
(20:07):
it's I mean it is that the parasite is in
the rat. The parasite needs to return to a cat,
and so it does it by taking over the rat's
brain and saying, hey, don't worry about anything, let's take
some risk. Let's go hang out around the places where
cats p all the time and see what happens. And
what will probably happen is a cat will eat them. Um.
There are even some studies that look at how this
(20:29):
affects humans when humans are the intermediate host. Yeah, that's
the question. How does t gandi play out in humans? Right?
There's a two thousand study from Charles University in Prague
made a lot of let me really made the rounds
a few years back, cut for sure, and reportedly if
you happen to have a recus negative blood which means
missing a protein on the surface of your blood cells,
(20:49):
a toxoplasmosa infection could make you two point five times
more likely to wind up in an automobile accident. So
we're getting into ideas of increased risky behavior to the parasites,
tinkering with how you think and how you perceive dangers
in the world. Depending where you live in the world,
between thirty and six of the population is infected with
(21:11):
us already, so keep this in mind. So if you
if you were to have toxoplasmosis infection as a human,
as again the intermediate host for this parasite, you also
might find yourself hearing voices or worrying over your enemies,
plots against you, uh, plots against you and your cats
maybe even uh. And the conditions conspiral even into delusional thoughts, hallucinations,
social withdrawal, and even impaired movement and cognitive function. Uh.
(21:35):
These are also all symptoms, just so you know, of schizophrenia,
debilitating brain disorder that affects one point one percent of
US population. But they're still also symptoms of acute toxoplasmosa infection. UH.
So again it goes to show just how much influence
a parasite, a tiny parasite, single cell organism, can have
(21:58):
on the way we perceive realityity and interact with it.
So that's another thing to think about when you look
at what should be a healthy, living human behaving like
a wild you know, zombie. Yeah. I mean here's the
thing too about t GANDHI. Um. You know, in in
those certain cases, it does hijack your immune system, particularly
(22:20):
if if you're someone who has a family history of
schizophrenia mental illness. Right, there's this idea that could tip
the scales. But um, so far Biologist Urroslav Flagger, who
he himself actually has t Gandhi. He found that toxoplasmosis,
although really widespread among the population, is mostly responsible for
(22:44):
behavioral changes like slovenly dress and introverted behavior in men
and extraversion and attention to appearance in women. Yes, so
in a way, it kind of makes women a little better.
It makes the cat ladies a little more pleasant and
makes the men a little more full. Okay, so we
think about what's going on with with a parasite that
(23:04):
has taken over humans that that are you know, clearly
very aggressive and slovenly. That makes sense for the male contingent, right,
but not the females. So we have plenty of female
zombies are there right now, at least from what we
have seen from the news clips and from the photos.
And they are not interested in matching their shoes to
(23:26):
their purses, right, we just put it that way. So,
so again we're not saying at all that that toxoplasmosis
is responsible for the zombies, but we're saying here's an
example in nature of how a parasite can rewire a
rat or a human to do its bidding and trying
to complete its life cycle. That's right, short circuiting the
fear system in our brains, right, and hijacking the immune system. Right.
(23:48):
So when we look out in the streets we see
these packs of zombies, we see coyotes are buzzards in
their midst generally in some cases the buzzards are swooping
in and eating on them, or coyotes are dragging the
smaller zombie uh into the alleyways. Uh. The idea here
is that that we think CDC thinks that one or
more of these species might be the the actual primary host,
(24:10):
and that the parasite is making is making these changes
in the in the the individual, making them more aggressive,
but also a little slow, a little staggery, a little stupid,
and also making them smell like rotting flesh, so that
creatures who scavenge and consume rotting flesh will go after them, um,
because they have to complete the life cycle. Right now,
(24:30):
you're and again you're probably wondering, well, if that's the
case that it needs to return to the scavenging creature
to sexually reproduce, then what's going on inside um, the
intermediate host? How come a zombie can bite a human
being and spread this this parasite there? Well, that is
because within the intermediate host um, a sexual reproduction is possible,
(24:50):
and we see this in the T. Gandhi um. Although
T Kandi ke Gandhi can infect, be transmitted by and
a sexually reproduce within humans and my stand any most
any other mammals that it's going to inhabit, the parasite
can only sexually reproduce within the intestines of a cat,
and we see this. Uh. We've talked about this in
(25:12):
regard to other um organisms before, where sexual reproduction is
important for diversity and for long term survival, but sometimes
you've got to fall back on a sexual reproduction just
to get your numbers up, just to survive a particular phase.
So yeah, and again, just to try to make sure
(25:32):
that we're not having information UM being misinterpreted here, we
are not saying Ti Gandhi is responsible for this, because
if if this were the case, then we would see
something that looked like pet cemetery outside with cats um
just attacking everybody and being super aggressive. And that is
not the case or not. The animals that are wandering
out humans seem to be the only intermediate host of
(25:54):
this organism and uh, and we don't know what this
organism is yet it's something perhaps entirely new or something
long forgotten. We don't know, but hopefully the CDC will
have answers for us in due time. But we're gonna
move on to some more examples of of of parasites
hijacking their hosts and actual cases of parasit zombies. Now,
(26:15):
this one is is a pretty interesting case, and this
is the case of of court aceps. Uh. What will
happen is you'll have a bullet ant, for instance, and
it becomes infected by a para parasitical fungus of the
court Aceps family, and these are these These infect the
ant's brain and UH and reprogram direct the ant to
(26:37):
crawl upward, to to disregard its previous instincts and to
crawl up a blade of grass and grip the stem
with its mandibles. So it's jaws stuck on that at
the very top of that blade of grass. Yeah, it's saying,
I know you're you're a program to you know, do
your thing, be a part of the the ant colony
and do some work. But instead we're going to cancel
all that, and you're gonna climb up this blade of grass,
(26:59):
up this plant. You're gonna grab hold and you're gonna wait. Now,
worker ants who discover this, they will they'll say no,
we're not having this. This is bad, and and that
they know it's bad. So they will take the infected
ant and they'll remove it. They'll drag it away and
dump it far from the colony because if they don't
do that, what happens next is pretty uh, pretty horrifying, yeah,
(27:22):
because within six hours it will be dead and a
few days later a tube will sprout from the ant's
head and this is the fruiting body of the fungus
that emits the spores which will infect a new generation
of ants. That is why they get them out of
the proximity of their area, right, Yeah, so that the
ant climbs up, grabs hold with all its might, dies
(27:44):
this thing, this little fungoid sprout, splits out of its skull,
and then will deposit more these spores that would cause
more and more ants to lose their minds, crawl up, grass,
die and then produce more spores and on and on.
And they're actually thousands of different court a SEPs out there,
each aimed at a different insects species. Uh. Their their
(28:05):
videos of it online. We'll try to share some when
this episode goes live so that you can see some
of these examples in action. I'll try and do a
podcast notes uh post for this episode so you can
see these things because it's it's beautiful and haunting and uh.
And while there's nothing out there that makes us think
that any kind of court ACCEP is responsible for the
(28:27):
zombie thing we see in the streets right now. Um,
if you but if you do see infected individuals zombies
boasting fungoi protrusions from their body or skull, do contact
authorities immediately because that is new information that they could use.
So far we have not seen that. But but generally,
if you see anybody in your daily life with fungoi
protrusions uh coming out of their head or body, uh,
(28:50):
do contact an authority because that's weird. I also wanted
to bring up the flat worm because the same sort
of thing happens with ants, where a flat worm can
infect an ant. And again reprogram it. Call all the
way up the blade of grass again, chomp down the
jaws will not move by the way the ant, and
(29:13):
yes to to just sit there and wait until a
cow comes munches it along with the flatworm, because again
it needs to complete its life cycle, it needs to
leave the ant and enter its primary hosts. Right, so
it gets into the cow's room and and then there
it begins again. So just another example here of how
(29:33):
widespread in nature this act is of going in and
tinkering with another organism's brain. Yes, now this next one
is also very very visual, and do check out the
blog post so you can see an example of this one.
I'm talking about luco Corridium paradox um or it's commonly
known as the green banded brood sack. And this parasite
(29:56):
goes through a couple of different life cycles. But then
it does all of the really interesting stuff inside of
a snail. Okay, so, so what happens you have a
grazing snail. It eats some bird droppings, because that's what
snails do. They're beaters. They eat gross things. Uh and
then uh, and then the parasite goes through some life
cycles inside of the snail, and then it starts pumping
(30:17):
embryos into a fat, throbbing, pulsate, brightly pulsating brood sack
that it builds in the snake's eye. Stalks so it's
builds this sack inside the eye stalk and then inflates
it with it's young and uh. The parasite also takes
control of the snail's brain, making the creature actually crave
daylight and making it set out into the open. And
(30:39):
you know snails, they tend to keep to the shadows,
you know, inside of your compost heat. So when you
go to get some to stir it around it, you know,
grosses the hell out of you, that kind of thing.
But it reprograms allay and said, actually, we're not going
to keep to the shadows. We're gonna head out into
the open, uh with our pulsating brood sack eyeball, which
is really important because that is uh to a bird's
eye at least, it looks a lot like a caterpillar.
(31:02):
It looks like a tasty caterpillar. They're just fat and
full of protein and ready for for snatching up. So
that's exactly what birds do. They swoop down, they eat
the ice talk, and now they have the parasites inside
of them, so it can continue bird primary host uh,
snail garden sale is the secondary host, and it just
continues like that. UM, even if the snail survives all
(31:23):
of this, they stay paralyzed, and that means that they
can affect other birds, which can affect other snails. And
it just continues. Okay, So another example we wanted to
talk about is Dino campus Cottonella. This is a parasitic wasp. Yes,
now this is a this is a really cool um
this is this is a really cool wasp. But I'm
a big fan of wasps. Uh, even when they sting
(31:45):
me and or almost killed my sister, or sting my
wife and make her leg really itchy for a week
that we and we did have an episode about wasps
versus bees, yes, and the differences and wasp kind of
came out on top in terms of their might. And
they're there, uh the frightening ability to do things like this, Yeah,
they're they're more warriors. Uh so implanting your larva inside
(32:09):
the belly of of another species, um was We're doing
this long before anybody dreamed up, you know, any kind
of xenomorph for an alien movie. This is why they
have their stingers, their ovipositors. Uh, the ideas, you know,
they plant the young inside this uh, this living creature,
and then when the thing develops it's able to have
(32:29):
its first meal by consuming the creature that it's growing inside,
born in in this case a sweet old ladybug. Yes, Now,
if you've ever had an infestation of ladybugs, you know
that they're the sweet act gets old really fast. But
but in this case um with dino campus coxinella, the
young hatches inside the belly of the host um. But
(32:50):
and this is following, of course, the the makeshift catastrophic
surgery by its parent to get it in there to
begin with. But not only does the ladybug survive the birth,
this parasitic birth from it this this chest bursting like
an aliens, but there's a little bit of a behavioral
modification that goes on as well that causes the ladybug
(33:10):
to hang out and guard the parasite baby as it
grows into adulthood beneath its protective bolt bulk. And scientists
believe that its secretions left by the larva when it
burst out that probably play a role in reprogramming the host.
Now of these ladybugs survived this ordeal in sort of
resume day to day behaviors, right, normal behaviors. Yeah, they're
(33:34):
just Insects are pretty hardy and and so they they
eventually shake off the crazy that was caused by the
larval secretions. Uh. And even though they have a hole
in their stomach that will larva emerge from there, they're
still good to go. So again, this is another example
of a parasitic relationship that involves reprogramming reprogram gramming of
(33:55):
a host to do something that is advantageous to the organism,
in this case, guard the young. I mean, it's it's
like a complete case of Oh, um, I really don't
want to raise this wasp kid on my own. I'm
gonna put it inside your abdomen. Oh and by the way,
when he gets out, he's gonna need a little looking after.
I'm gonna have you do that as well. Uh. And
(34:15):
then afterward, if you survive all of this, then you
can carry on with your normal life. I also want
to give another example of a parasitic wasp that takes
over um a spider that is indigenous to Costa Rica.
The spider is called Analysimus octavious, and what happens is
that the wasp has genes that produce proteins that alter
(34:37):
the spider's behavior. Right, and in this case, the proteins
contract out with the Spider as though it were an architect. Right,
So this is what the Wasp was doing is basically saying,
you need to build me a house. Okay, So the
Spider abandoned its own home and begins spinning a new
shelter for the eventual Wasp larva that will emerge from
(35:00):
it's carcass. Right, okay, because at this point that the
Wasp has already deposited its lava into the Spider, the
new shelters spun by the Spider is key to the
wasps larva's survival. It has a platform topped by a
thick sheet that protects it from rain, and the wasp
lava crawls to the edge of this platform and spins
(35:21):
a cocoon that hangs down through an opening that the
Spider has provided when it was creating this home for
the wasp lava that emerged from its body. Wow. That
that is an incredible case of parasitic manipulation. In one case,
we saw the Wasp saying, Hey, you're gonna raise my
young and in this case, hey, you're going to build
a house for me. You're going to build a house
(35:43):
specific and it's gonna be very different from the types
of homes that you normally spin. This one is going
to have a ledge, it's going to have some shelter um.
In speaking about parasites in the animal world, particularly cases
of toxic plasmosis or these architect zombie spiders of The
New York Times, author of the article how to Control
an Army of Zombies, rights that whether humans are susceptible
(36:06):
to this sort of zombie invasion is less clear. It
is challenging enough to figure out how parasites manipulate invertebrates,
which have a few hundred thousand neurons in their nervous systems. Vertebrates,
including humans, have millions or billions of neurons, and so
scientists have made fewer advances in studying their zombification. Things
(36:26):
to think about as as we face, uh, this, this
parasite infection in front of us. Yeah, I mean, it's uh,
it's it's getting kind of bad. The coffee machine has
been out for literally hours here at work. Yeah, I
know you your your eye keeps twitching and that I
can't I mean, I'm gonna say this. You have unsettling
presence that's beginning to form around you. Well, that's that's
(36:48):
no good at all. I'm gonna have to drink more
green tea. I know, I'm gonna, you know what, I'm
gonna try to find all the caffeine stores I can. Yeah,
I promise you that you think some of our coworkers
are stockpiling caffeine, because if that is the case, um,
there needs to be reckoning. Well, I think that after
this we can probably investigate, maybe round up some people
suspects and see see who's holding because because seriously, it's
(37:10):
supposed to be a team here, I know, right, Okay,
so we we all need to be on the same
page here. We don't need to be, you know, taking
all the coffee in the caffeine because we need it exactly.
Did you did that sound like a body slumping up
against the door. It might be, Um, it might be, Well,
we better we better close this out so we can
(37:31):
investigate that. I'm just gonna rehash for people that are
still listening about the threat that we're facing. Stay indoors.
The effected will not be able to manipulate locks. Um.
Also pay attention to emergency broadcasts, listen to what's going on.
Hopefully the CDC law Enforcement National Guard will have everything
sorted out shortly. Do not harm infected individuals. Again, these
(37:51):
are not the living dead. These are individuals whose whose
bodies have been taken over by a parasite that we're
still trying to understand. It's causing their skin to undergo.
The crown appear to be rotting in order to attract
um scavenging organisms um. And it also, recovery may be
possible for these individuals. We talked about the ladybug. It
returns to normal life after the paraside have done with it,
(38:11):
so uh, it may cure itself naturally. CDC may have
some sort of a cure that we can start rolling
out very shortly, we don't know yet. But do not
harm the individuals. Do not harm the zombies. And finally,
reports sightings have infected U two authorities as well as
any new peculiarities that may be uh showing up, because
that might help us to better understand what's happening. Yeah,
(38:33):
we're talking about pulsating brood sex or fungoid procrisions. Indeed,
all right, uh, let us know what you guys know
out there about what's going on. You can get in
touch with this uh, in many different ways. Yes, you
can visit our website, which is Stuff to Blow Your
Mind dot com. You can find us on Facebook and tumbler.
We are stuff to Blow your Mind on both of those.
Our Twitter feed is blow the Mind, and on YouTube
(38:56):
we are Mind Stuff Show and you can always send
us an email at blow the Mind at discovery dot com.
For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit
how Stuff Works dot com
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff
Works dot Com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.
My name is Robert lamp This is Julie Douglas, and
this is this is a different episode that we're doing
here today. Normally, we we distract you with with the
(00:26):
you know, various cool things that are going on in
the world scientifically speaking, and today is very much a
reactionary episode. Well it's kind of a distraction for us, yeah,
because we're we're here in Atlanta, stuck in the house
Stuff Works office. Um, I can't really get home. The
highways or are just a complete parking lot of you know,
cars are not moving. The Marta tracks have completely shut down.
(00:49):
Some people were trying to to walk the tracks through
the tunnels, and I believe that is meeting with varying
degrees of success. But a lot of people are calling
what's going on now as the outbreak, and we're going
to use the term zombie, but but really it is
a it's a it's a misleading term, as we'll discuss. Well,
the media keeps throwing it around because I mean the
(01:10):
effects of this parasite seems very zombie like. But look, guys,
we realized that you may not even actually hear this episode. UM,
we don't know when you'll hear it. Think if you
do hear it, things might have changed since this recording
that it's made first, and we're just trying to document
what's going on here in Atlanta. Yeah, so I'm gonna
I'm gonna just run through some of the facts, some
(01:32):
of the things we know about what's going on right now.
There's a lot of misinformation on out there. Hopefully if
if you were in the area that's affected, which seems
to be largely um uh confined to the Atlanta area
and a few other parts of the of the Southeast,
then hopefully you're listening to to uh you know, your
local radio, trying to find reliable TV signals. But we
(01:54):
do know that a severe zombie outbreak has occurred in
the Atlanta area. These these bombie packs are roaming the
city UH generally pursued by buzzards UH and coyotes occasionally raccoons. UH.
They are attracted by the smell of the king flesh
and UM. It was actually it was at first reported
(02:16):
as as a flash mob parody of the Walking Dead,
because as we are, Walking Dead is filmed here in Atlanta.
But no, it's the real deal, apparently. Yeah, and and
certainly that the pop culture idea of the zombie is
is something to take into account here, because take The
Walking Dead for example. The characters in that show are
dealing with zombies or walkers, and they seem to be
dealing with it outside of the pop culture idea of
(02:40):
the zombie. Like they don't seem to have any preconceived
notions about walking dead and walkers and zombies and what
have you. But but we have to contend to contend
with that. So again, these infected individuals are roaming the city.
They are they they are behaving violently. They are striking
out against uh really any kind of of non infected
(03:02):
individual that they're encountering. Um. Meanwhile, everyone else is either
holding up in their homes if and this is definitely
the thing to do, hold up in your homes. The
infected individuals are not going to be able to access
your home. They're not gonna be able to figure out locks.
So if you're locked up, you're good. If you're going
out and trying to engage with them, that is where
the danger comes into play. Because again, everyone's been watching
(03:23):
all these zombie programs. We have a certain preconceived notion
of what this is supposed to be, and then what
is allowed. You have individuals that are behaving violently towards
the infected. Uh. So the hs W employees are fellow
podcasters have have have taken refuge inside the hs W offices. Yeah,
and we're all okay, but I mean there are some
(03:44):
signs of strain. Um, Josh Clark keeps ripping strips off
his shirt to make Rambo headbands. Yeah, which is fine,
just a little weird. And then Tracy Wilson um has
used her library bar code software and tagged each of
us with a call number. Well, you know, in stressful situations,
people handle things differently. They organize, they do some prep work. Um,
(04:05):
it's understandable. I do wish we could find Ben Bolen um,
so if anyone out there has seen him, UM, let
us know. Um other things that we know. The main
CDC centers for Disease Control compound here in Atlanta has
uh has fallen. Perhaps we're not sure if their communication
system is just out but um, we're not hearing any
(04:26):
word from them. But but this was after they did
release some preliminary findings. The research continues elsewhere, but we
do know that the quote unquote zombies are not undead
but living human specimens whose systems have been hijacked by
a parasitic organism. Right, this is very important, This is
what's This is really the nut of what's going on
right now. Yeah, the parasite seems to reprogram the patient
(04:48):
over a period of hours, uh, gradually introducing skin necrosis
and instilling a shambling gage. So the the the appear
to be rotting, But what is going on here is
the skin itself undergoing necrosis and taking on the appearance
and eventually the odor of rotting flesh. Um, they're shambling,
they're groaning, severely depleted will, and extreme aggressive behavior toward
(05:11):
all other organisms, typified by a desire to claw, bite,
and quote unquote eat human flesh, and a lot of
name calling. There are a lot of name calling zombies,
which I mean, it is funny, but it's not funny.
It's because they want to eat your face. Um, it's
like Don Rickles becoming super aggressive and being sort of
rabies written. Yes, and we'll get to the rabies question
(05:35):
in a bit too, because I know that has been
something that a lot of people have have been bringing up. Um.
The other thing is that popular consumption of zombie fiction
again has prepared everyone to respond in a violent, merciless
nature towards the infected. And this is only escalated the
unrest people see this happening and it it creates just
anarchy in the streets. Well, that's the question right now,
(05:55):
like what is what is the bigger threat here the
unrest or this out? Yes, yeah, that and and certainly
they're they're more than enough guns to go around, which
also complicates the situation. Uh c DC preliminary findings indicate
that the parasite may complete its life cycle within the
body of a scavenging organism of some sort, perhaps coyotes, buzzards,
(06:16):
or maybe even bears. We're not sure. Certainly you have
uh in the situations where bears in other countries are digging,
dig up graveyard corpses and consume them. They're attacked attracted
to the smell of rotting flesh. Uh. And the CDC
also indicates that the parasite is transferable from human to
human via the infected blood and saliva. Now, some of
(06:37):
that is maybe not taking hold of your brains right away.
Exactly how this is working within the life cycle of
the parasite that we're still trying to understand, how it
can how it needs to enter another organism such as
a buzzard such as the coyote or maybe a bear
to complete its life cycle. UM, but then can still
be spread from human to human. Well, in this episode,
(06:58):
what we're going to do in an attempt to try
and understand this unknown single cell parasite that is that
it seems to be causing the situation. We're going to
look at known examples, scientifically chronicled examples of parasitic organisms
that hijack a victim, hijack a host, and uh and
in some cases actually create zombie like behavior in that host.
(07:21):
We're gonna look to these examples and an attempt to
understand what's going on now. Yeah, because I mean, really,
this is the best information we have so far about
how to approach this outbreak in humans. So of course
the rabies thing keeps coming up, Yes, and uh, I
need I need to distress that this is not rabies.
We don't we don't have to worry about this being
(07:41):
a raby situation. UM. Human to human transmissions of rabies
are almost unheard of. UM. The Centers for Disease Control
speculates that it can happen due to sexual contact, kissing,
um organ tissue transplants, etcetera. But for the most part,
humans are actually catching rabies from other animals, from rapid animals,
(08:02):
and and outside of the United States where we only
have one or two, you know, three human rabies cases
a year in humans, between thirty thousand and seventy people
worldwide contract rabies. The thing is is that there's a
correlation with the symptoms of rabies and what we see
outside of our course today. There's the anxiety, confusion, Uh,
(08:26):
what seems like hallucinations, yeah, partial or total put paralysis yeah.
And Uh. The thing is is that with rabies, we
know that this doesn't really take hold of these symptoms
anywhere from like ten days to a year as the
virus incubates in the body. So the question is is
there a way that this rabies virus could have maybe
(08:50):
mutated um well and be responsible for what we see UM.
The CDC is saying no. But but theoretically it has
been proposed in the past that if rabies we were
to to mutate and and and take on flu light symptoms. Essentially,
if you had a hybrid of rabies and the flu
(09:12):
and influenza, then you could have an airborne rabies that
would spread with the would spread faster, and would have
a higher potential to spread from human to human. Now,
virologists at the University of Miami's Miller School of Medicine
and Florida, Samita Andriansky, she has said that sure she
could imagine a scenario where you could mix rabies with
(09:34):
a flu virus to get airborne transmission, a measled virus
to get personality changes, and cephalitis virus to cook your
brain with a fever, and then increase aggression even more
by throwing in ebola, okay, so that you began to
bleed from your guts. She said, if you combine all
these things, you could get something like a zombie virus.
(09:55):
But she says nature doesn't allow all these things to
happen at the same time. Yeah. It. We're of course,
we're talking in this about theoretical chimera virus is UH,
and this is a big part of bioweaponry UH. The
and the idea that we could take existing pathogens and
and combine them to make something even more devastating. But again, uh,
(10:16):
CDCs told us is not rabies. This is not any
kind of bioterrorism attack or anything of that nature. Um.
And and when it comes to rabies in general, it's
worth noting that, yes, you can look at a list
of symptoms for rabies, and you can you can cherry
pick the symptoms that would make a zombie, but that
does not mean that every human case of rabies is
(10:37):
going to resemble something you saw in a zombie movie,
or resemble what's going on in the world right now. True. True,
But the paralysis, the extreme aggression, these are all things
that again we're seeing. Um. But as you say, this
seems highly unlikely as a cause of the parasite that
has stricken humans right now. On how Stuff Works dot Com,
(10:57):
we have an article by Tracy V. Wilson, uh, which
I understand she's revising right now, over and over and photos,
lots of photos, um, how Zombies Work, where she breaks
down some of the issues with rabies we've already discussed, uh,
the pop culture aspects of zombies, but then also gets
into this, uh, this idea that this the reality of
(11:20):
Haitian zombie powder, which is another thing. We want to
special specify that this is not there's nothing going on
out here in the streets of Atlanta that is related
to Haitian voodoo practices and and sorcery and and uh
in neurotoxins. Right, it's more of a question of bioweapons
and could this happen on a mass scale. And in
(11:40):
order to kind of give you guys an idea of
what we're talking about, we should probably travel back to
night because in nineteen eighty there was a man who
appeared in a rural Haitian village. He claimed to be
Clarvius Narcissa and that he had died in a hospital
in Haiti on March second, nineteen sixty two. Okay, so
in nineteen eighty he comes waltzing in. He described being
(12:02):
conscious but paralyzed during his presumed death. He had even
seen the doctor cover his face with a sheet. And
he claims that a bacoor or a sorcerer had resurrected
him and made him a zombie. And this was a
case that was explored by Dr Wade Davis traveled to
Haiti collected eight samples of the quote unquote zombie powder
(12:23):
that the sorcerers who are using there, and he identified
ingredients uh that contained some of these these common substances,
one being a tetrodotoxin from a pupper fish, toxic substances
from a marine toad, and some irritating substances from a
highla tree frog. Now, the tetrodotoxin definitely causes paralysis and death,
(12:48):
and researchers have documented cases in which people have recovered
from near fatal poisonings with this substance, so they have
maybe seemed to die and then they have come back.
So there's there's the possibility that this substance is the
root cause of the zombie idea in Haitian culture. Well
in some victims of toxin poisoning often remained conscious until
(13:12):
just before death. So that would explain seeing that the
sheet going over your face right, right. But there are
a number of problems and potential problems with Davis's work. UH.
So you have a number of individuals and the scientific
community who have criticized it or even called it fraudulent.
Some of questions in Davis's ethics since the observe the
(13:32):
desecration of graves while gathering ingredients for the powder. UH,
some of questions whether the initial experiments with the powder
were scientific or control, and whether other substances have been
added to the powder being tested. Some allege that samples
of the powder can name little or no TETRAO toxin UH,
and Davis countered by saying that putting the powder into
solution for testing may have destroyed the active ingredients. Some
(13:53):
have charged that Davis repeated his topical applications of the
powder using rats and saw absolutely no effect. And then
some individual studied this several of these alleged zombies and
discovered clear cases of mental illness and mistaken identity. So
that's a lot of there's several grains of salt there
that you have to potentially take into account when you're
considering Davis's work. Well, there's also this idea of how
(14:16):
much could this can really absorb the powder anyway? And
if this were to be used on a mass scale
to create you know, quote unquote zombie humans, Um, how
how would that happen in a way that would make sense? Yeah,
and then you know, the case that we we were
talking about here is an individual wandering into a village
and saying, hey, I died a long time ago, and
(14:36):
I'm I'm not dead, and I'm a little confused, then
I'm a zombie. Um. That's generally not what you see
in zombie movies and and certainly not what we're seeing
on the street where we have peep individuals who are
raising questions about their their status and and and suggesting
that they might be zombies. Sure they might be a
bit confused, right, Um, the people who purportedly have been
(14:58):
ghost with zombie powder, but are right, they're not marauding. Um.
And certainly what we see the examples that we have
seen out there, um, people are not giving their autobiographies
right right, They're they're not. They're just engaging with other
with humans in a very um, a very brutal and
aggressive fashion. So all right, so you know it's worth
(15:20):
I think talking about that. But really what we're concentrating
on today are parasites because this does seem to be
the cause here. So the life of a parasite is
is I think a lot of us know, is one
of eternal pilgrimage and cyclical return. Uh. They must leave home,
which is in a one type of organism, and they
must travel along strange roads through other organisms. Uh, and
(15:43):
then they must eventually return to the place they began.
So you have a primary host, and the primary host
is is where sexual reproduction happens. That is where the
creatures are are generally born, or at least the eggs
are produced. You know. This is this is the home.
And then there is a secondary organism, uh, in which
(16:03):
it must travel. And so you end up with this
this cycle, this life cycle where just as this as
a man leaves his home and he moves to a city,
and then he eventually returns home to die or to
begin life again. It's kind of that kind of cycle
prodigal parasite, yes exactly. Yeah, all right, well, before we
go into another one of nature's examples of this, let's
(16:25):
take a quick break because I mean, assuming everything's okay,
we still need to take a break and acknowledge, uh,
what's going on. Yeah it maybe it may be the
zombie apocalypse for all we know, but it doesn't mean
that we're not going to do advertisements. So we're gonna
take a quick break, and when we come back, we're
gonna get into the examples of parasitic zombies in action
(16:46):
in the natural world. Alright, we're back, and if you're
just joining us. We're in the grips of what many
people were calling a zombie outbreak or even a mild
zombie apocalypse here in the Atlanta area and in certain
pockets of activity throughout the Southeast CDC. Even though they
have apparently lost control of their their main facilities here
(17:10):
in Atlanta, they are still on the case. They're trying
to get to the heart of this um. Law enforcement
is out trying to control both the infected individuals who
are roaming aggressively to the street and also the uninfected
individuals who have watched too many zombie shows and think
they need to take to the street with crude weapons
to battle the infected. It's it's there's a lot of unrest.
(17:30):
If you're listening to it, stay indoors, do not engage
with the infected individuals. But in this episode, we are
talking about cases in nature where a parasite reprograms a
host to its bidding and in some cases creates a
zombie from the host. So these are real world, natural
examples of parasitic zombies in action, which will hopefully help
(17:54):
us to better understand what's going on out there in
the streets. Yeah, and we're going to talk about Toxoplasma galandhy.
We talked about T. Gandhi before, but I think it
bears covering this information again because there's some Again, there's
some really interesting correlations with what we see on the
streets and what we know about T. Gandhi. Um to
Gandhi really illustrates that single fell parasitic organisms are capable
(18:18):
of rewiring human behavior an attempt to complete their life cycle.
We know this. We have seen this in animals and
we've seen in humans. Yeah, Now, toxoplasi plasmosis um T. Gandhi,
as we've discussed before, this is this is something that
lives in the lining of an infected cat's and testines,
and for two or three weeks following infection, millions of
(18:40):
microscopic toxoplasmos so young, which we call osis, ship out
aboard the cats feces, they leave the mother ship cat
aboard the cat poop, and any creature that encounters the
stowaway laden waste is susceptible to accidental infection. And this means,
you know, touching a litter box, infected soil and actuld water,
(19:00):
infected garden veggies, or of course more importantly, rats and
rodents digging around in the poop. Okay, because the then
the idea is that while the cat is the primary host,
then the rat or rodent or squirrel chipment what have
you is the intermediate host where the ossu continue to
develop and uh, and then once they have developed inside
(19:24):
of that rats day, then they want to return to
a cat to complete their life cycle. And they do
this by reprogramming the rats brain. So normally a rat
would say, I smell cat urine. I'm taken off right,
this is a fear signal. They processed this, but it
turns out that, uh, the parasite will actually cause the
(19:46):
rat to crave urine and be attracted to it. And
not only that, the parasite is short circuiting the fear
center in the rats brain. Okay, so this is a
huge behavioral change. It is essentially saying, hey, rat, why
don't you go present yourself to the cat and say here, here, kitty. Exactly? Yeah,
(20:07):
it's I mean it is that the parasite is in
the rat. The parasite needs to return to a cat,
and so it does it by taking over the rat's
brain and saying, hey, don't worry about anything, let's take
some risk. Let's go hang out around the places where
cats p all the time and see what happens. And
what will probably happen is a cat will eat them. Um.
There are even some studies that look at how this
(20:29):
affects humans when humans are the intermediate host. Yeah, that's
the question. How does t gandi play out in humans? Right?
There's a two thousand study from Charles University in Prague
made a lot of let me really made the rounds
a few years back, cut for sure, and reportedly if
you happen to have a recus negative blood which means
missing a protein on the surface of your blood cells,
(20:49):
a toxoplasmosa infection could make you two point five times
more likely to wind up in an automobile accident. So
we're getting into ideas of increased risky behavior to the parasites,
tinkering with how you think and how you perceive dangers
in the world. Depending where you live in the world,
between thirty and six of the population is infected with
(21:11):
us already, so keep this in mind. So if you
if you were to have toxoplasmosis infection as a human,
as again the intermediate host for this parasite, you also
might find yourself hearing voices or worrying over your enemies,
plots against you, uh, plots against you and your cats
maybe even uh. And the conditions conspiral even into delusional thoughts, hallucinations,
social withdrawal, and even impaired movement and cognitive function. Uh.
(21:35):
These are also all symptoms, just so you know, of schizophrenia,
debilitating brain disorder that affects one point one percent of
US population. But they're still also symptoms of acute toxoplasmosa infection. UH.
So again it goes to show just how much influence
a parasite, a tiny parasite, single cell organism, can have
(21:58):
on the way we perceive realityity and interact with it.
So that's another thing to think about when you look
at what should be a healthy, living human behaving like
a wild you know, zombie. Yeah. I mean here's the
thing too about t GANDHI. Um. You know, in in
those certain cases, it does hijack your immune system, particularly
(22:20):
if if you're someone who has a family history of
schizophrenia mental illness. Right, there's this idea that could tip
the scales. But um, so far Biologist Urroslav Flagger, who
he himself actually has t Gandhi. He found that toxoplasmosis,
although really widespread among the population, is mostly responsible for
(22:44):
behavioral changes like slovenly dress and introverted behavior in men
and extraversion and attention to appearance in women. Yes, so
in a way, it kind of makes women a little better.
It makes the cat ladies a little more pleasant and
makes the men a little more full. Okay, so we
think about what's going on with with a parasite that
(23:04):
has taken over humans that that are you know, clearly
very aggressive and slovenly. That makes sense for the male contingent, right,
but not the females. So we have plenty of female
zombies are there right now, at least from what we
have seen from the news clips and from the photos.
And they are not interested in matching their shoes to
(23:26):
their purses, right, we just put it that way. So,
so again we're not saying at all that that toxoplasmosis
is responsible for the zombies, but we're saying here's an
example in nature of how a parasite can rewire a
rat or a human to do its bidding and trying
to complete its life cycle. That's right, short circuiting the
fear system in our brains, right, and hijacking the immune system. Right.
(23:48):
So when we look out in the streets we see
these packs of zombies, we see coyotes are buzzards in
their midst generally in some cases the buzzards are swooping
in and eating on them, or coyotes are dragging the
smaller zombie uh into the alleyways. Uh. The idea here
is that that we think CDC thinks that one or
more of these species might be the the actual primary host,
(24:10):
and that the parasite is making is making these changes
in the in the the individual, making them more aggressive,
but also a little slow, a little staggery, a little stupid,
and also making them smell like rotting flesh, so that
creatures who scavenge and consume rotting flesh will go after them, um,
because they have to complete the life cycle. Right now,
(24:30):
you're and again you're probably wondering, well, if that's the
case that it needs to return to the scavenging creature
to sexually reproduce, then what's going on inside um, the
intermediate host? How come a zombie can bite a human
being and spread this this parasite there? Well, that is
because within the intermediate host um, a sexual reproduction is possible,
(24:50):
and we see this in the T. Gandhi um. Although
T Kandi ke Gandhi can infect, be transmitted by and
a sexually reproduce within humans and my stand any most
any other mammals that it's going to inhabit, the parasite
can only sexually reproduce within the intestines of a cat,
and we see this. Uh. We've talked about this in
(25:12):
regard to other um organisms before, where sexual reproduction is
important for diversity and for long term survival, but sometimes
you've got to fall back on a sexual reproduction just
to get your numbers up, just to survive a particular phase.
So yeah, and again, just to try to make sure
(25:32):
that we're not having information UM being misinterpreted here, we
are not saying Ti Gandhi is responsible for this, because
if if this were the case, then we would see
something that looked like pet cemetery outside with cats um
just attacking everybody and being super aggressive. And that is
not the case or not. The animals that are wandering
out humans seem to be the only intermediate host of
(25:54):
this organism and uh, and we don't know what this
organism is yet it's something perhaps entirely new or something
long forgotten. We don't know, but hopefully the CDC will
have answers for us in due time. But we're gonna
move on to some more examples of of of parasites
hijacking their hosts and actual cases of parasit zombies. Now,
(26:15):
this one is is a pretty interesting case, and this
is the case of of court aceps. Uh. What will
happen is you'll have a bullet ant, for instance, and
it becomes infected by a para parasitical fungus of the
court Aceps family, and these are these These infect the
ant's brain and UH and reprogram direct the ant to
(26:37):
crawl upward, to to disregard its previous instincts and to
crawl up a blade of grass and grip the stem
with its mandibles. So it's jaws stuck on that at
the very top of that blade of grass. Yeah, it's saying,
I know you're you're a program to you know, do
your thing, be a part of the the ant colony
and do some work. But instead we're going to cancel
all that, and you're gonna climb up this blade of grass,
(26:59):
up this plant. You're gonna grab hold and you're gonna wait. Now,
worker ants who discover this, they will they'll say no,
we're not having this. This is bad, and and that
they know it's bad. So they will take the infected
ant and they'll remove it. They'll drag it away and
dump it far from the colony because if they don't
do that, what happens next is pretty uh, pretty horrifying, yeah,
(27:22):
because within six hours it will be dead and a
few days later a tube will sprout from the ant's
head and this is the fruiting body of the fungus
that emits the spores which will infect a new generation
of ants. That is why they get them out of
the proximity of their area, right, Yeah, so that the
ant climbs up, grabs hold with all its might, dies
(27:44):
this thing, this little fungoid sprout, splits out of its skull,
and then will deposit more these spores that would cause
more and more ants to lose their minds, crawl up, grass,
die and then produce more spores and on and on.
And they're actually thousands of different court a SEPs out there,
each aimed at a different insects species. Uh. Their their
(28:05):
videos of it online. We'll try to share some when
this episode goes live so that you can see some
of these examples in action. I'll try and do a
podcast notes uh post for this episode so you can
see these things because it's it's beautiful and haunting and uh.
And while there's nothing out there that makes us think
that any kind of court ACCEP is responsible for the
(28:27):
zombie thing we see in the streets right now. Um,
if you but if you do see infected individuals zombies
boasting fungoi protrusions from their body or skull, do contact
authorities immediately because that is new information that they could use.
So far we have not seen that. But but generally,
if you see anybody in your daily life with fungoi
protrusions uh coming out of their head or body, uh,
(28:50):
do contact an authority because that's weird. I also wanted
to bring up the flat worm because the same sort
of thing happens with ants, where a flat worm can
infect an ant. And again reprogram it. Call all the
way up the blade of grass again, chomp down the
jaws will not move by the way the ant, and
(29:13):
yes to to just sit there and wait until a
cow comes munches it along with the flatworm, because again
it needs to complete its life cycle, it needs to
leave the ant and enter its primary hosts. Right, so
it gets into the cow's room and and then there
it begins again. So just another example here of how
(29:33):
widespread in nature this act is of going in and
tinkering with another organism's brain. Yes, now this next one
is also very very visual, and do check out the
blog post so you can see an example of this one.
I'm talking about luco Corridium paradox um or it's commonly
known as the green banded brood sack. And this parasite
(29:56):
goes through a couple of different life cycles. But then
it does all of the really interesting stuff inside of
a snail. Okay, so, so what happens you have a
grazing snail. It eats some bird droppings, because that's what
snails do. They're beaters. They eat gross things. Uh and
then uh, and then the parasite goes through some life
cycles inside of the snail, and then it starts pumping
(30:17):
embryos into a fat, throbbing, pulsate, brightly pulsating brood sack
that it builds in the snake's eye. Stalks so it's
builds this sack inside the eye stalk and then inflates
it with it's young and uh. The parasite also takes
control of the snail's brain, making the creature actually crave
daylight and making it set out into the open. And
(30:39):
you know snails, they tend to keep to the shadows,
you know, inside of your compost heat. So when you
go to get some to stir it around it, you know,
grosses the hell out of you, that kind of thing.
But it reprograms allay and said, actually, we're not going
to keep to the shadows. We're gonna head out into
the open, uh with our pulsating brood sack eyeball, which
is really important because that is uh to a bird's
eye at least, it looks a lot like a caterpillar.
(31:02):
It looks like a tasty caterpillar. They're just fat and
full of protein and ready for for snatching up. So
that's exactly what birds do. They swoop down, they eat
the ice talk, and now they have the parasites inside
of them, so it can continue bird primary host uh,
snail garden sale is the secondary host, and it just
continues like that. UM, even if the snail survives all
(31:23):
of this, they stay paralyzed, and that means that they
can affect other birds, which can affect other snails. And
it just continues. Okay, So another example we wanted to
talk about is Dino campus Cottonella. This is a parasitic wasp. Yes,
now this is a this is a really cool um
this is this is a really cool wasp. But I'm
a big fan of wasps. Uh, even when they sting
(31:45):
me and or almost killed my sister, or sting my
wife and make her leg really itchy for a week
that we and we did have an episode about wasps
versus bees, yes, and the differences and wasp kind of
came out on top in terms of their might. And
they're there, uh the frightening ability to do things like this, Yeah,
they're they're more warriors. Uh so implanting your larva inside
(32:09):
the belly of of another species, um was We're doing
this long before anybody dreamed up, you know, any kind
of xenomorph for an alien movie. This is why they
have their stingers, their ovipositors. Uh, the ideas, you know,
they plant the young inside this uh, this living creature,
and then when the thing develops it's able to have
(32:29):
its first meal by consuming the creature that it's growing inside,
born in in this case a sweet old ladybug. Yes, Now,
if you've ever had an infestation of ladybugs, you know
that they're the sweet act gets old really fast. But
but in this case um with dino campus coxinella, the
young hatches inside the belly of the host um. But
(32:50):
and this is following, of course, the the makeshift catastrophic
surgery by its parent to get it in there to
begin with. But not only does the ladybug survive the birth,
this parasitic birth from it this this chest bursting like
an aliens, but there's a little bit of a behavioral
modification that goes on as well that causes the ladybug
(33:10):
to hang out and guard the parasite baby as it
grows into adulthood beneath its protective bolt bulk. And scientists
believe that its secretions left by the larva when it
burst out that probably play a role in reprogramming the host.
Now of these ladybugs survived this ordeal in sort of
resume day to day behaviors, right, normal behaviors. Yeah, they're
(33:34):
just Insects are pretty hardy and and so they they
eventually shake off the crazy that was caused by the
larval secretions. Uh. And even though they have a hole
in their stomach that will larva emerge from there, they're
still good to go. So again, this is another example
of a parasitic relationship that involves reprogramming reprogram gramming of
(33:55):
a host to do something that is advantageous to the organism,
in this case, guard the young. I mean, it's it's
like a complete case of Oh, um, I really don't
want to raise this wasp kid on my own. I'm
gonna put it inside your abdomen. Oh and by the way,
when he gets out, he's gonna need a little looking after.
I'm gonna have you do that as well. Uh. And
(34:15):
then afterward, if you survive all of this, then you
can carry on with your normal life. I also want
to give another example of a parasitic wasp that takes
over um a spider that is indigenous to Costa Rica.
The spider is called Analysimus octavious, and what happens is
that the wasp has genes that produce proteins that alter
(34:37):
the spider's behavior. Right, and in this case, the proteins
contract out with the Spider as though it were an architect. Right,
So this is what the Wasp was doing is basically saying,
you need to build me a house. Okay, So the
Spider abandoned its own home and begins spinning a new
shelter for the eventual Wasp larva that will emerge from
(35:00):
it's carcass. Right, okay, because at this point that the
Wasp has already deposited its lava into the Spider, the
new shelters spun by the Spider is key to the
wasps larva's survival. It has a platform topped by a
thick sheet that protects it from rain, and the wasp
lava crawls to the edge of this platform and spins
(35:21):
a cocoon that hangs down through an opening that the
Spider has provided when it was creating this home for
the wasp lava that emerged from its body. Wow. That
that is an incredible case of parasitic manipulation. In one case,
we saw the Wasp saying, Hey, you're gonna raise my
young and in this case, hey, you're going to build
a house for me. You're going to build a house
(35:43):
specific and it's gonna be very different from the types
of homes that you normally spin. This one is going
to have a ledge, it's going to have some shelter um.
In speaking about parasites in the animal world, particularly cases
of toxic plasmosis or these architect zombie spiders of The
New York Times, author of the article how to Control
an Army of Zombies, rights that whether humans are susceptible
(36:06):
to this sort of zombie invasion is less clear. It
is challenging enough to figure out how parasites manipulate invertebrates,
which have a few hundred thousand neurons in their nervous systems. Vertebrates,
including humans, have millions or billions of neurons, and so
scientists have made fewer advances in studying their zombification. Things
(36:26):
to think about as as we face, uh, this, this
parasite infection in front of us. Yeah, I mean, it's uh,
it's it's getting kind of bad. The coffee machine has
been out for literally hours here at work. Yeah, I
know you your your eye keeps twitching and that I
can't I mean, I'm gonna say this. You have unsettling
presence that's beginning to form around you. Well, that's that's
(36:48):
no good at all. I'm gonna have to drink more
green tea. I know, I'm gonna, you know what, I'm
gonna try to find all the caffeine stores I can. Yeah,
I promise you that you think some of our coworkers
are stockpiling caffeine, because if that is the case, um,
there needs to be reckoning. Well, I think that after
this we can probably investigate, maybe round up some people
suspects and see see who's holding because because seriously, it's
(37:10):
supposed to be a team here, I know, right, Okay,
so we we all need to be on the same
page here. We don't need to be, you know, taking
all the coffee in the caffeine because we need it exactly.
Did you did that sound like a body slumping up
against the door. It might be, Um, it might be, Well,
we better we better close this out so we can
(37:31):
investigate that. I'm just gonna rehash for people that are
still listening about the threat that we're facing. Stay indoors.
The effected will not be able to manipulate locks. Um.
Also pay attention to emergency broadcasts, listen to what's going on.
Hopefully the CDC law Enforcement National Guard will have everything
sorted out shortly. Do not harm infected individuals. Again, these
(37:51):
are not the living dead. These are individuals whose whose
bodies have been taken over by a parasite that we're
still trying to understand. It's causing their skin to undergo.
The crown appear to be rotting in order to attract
um scavenging organisms um. And it also, recovery may be
possible for these individuals. We talked about the ladybug. It
returns to normal life after the paraside have done with it,
(38:11):
so uh, it may cure itself naturally. CDC may have
some sort of a cure that we can start rolling
out very shortly, we don't know yet. But do not
harm the individuals. Do not harm the zombies. And finally,
reports sightings have infected U two authorities as well as
any new peculiarities that may be uh showing up, because
that might help us to better understand what's happening. Yeah,
(38:33):
we're talking about pulsating brood sex or fungoid procrisions. Indeed,
all right, uh, let us know what you guys know
out there about what's going on. You can get in
touch with this uh, in many different ways. Yes, you
can visit our website, which is Stuff to Blow Your
Mind dot com. You can find us on Facebook and tumbler.
We are stuff to Blow your Mind on both of those.
Our Twitter feed is blow the Mind, and on YouTube
(38:56):
we are Mind Stuff Show and you can always send
us an email at blow the Mind at discovery dot com.
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