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posted by azrael on Thursday July 17 2014, @10:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the drop-the-defensive-shields dept.

ScienceDaily reports that:

Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) is a single-celled parasite that is happiest in a cat's intestines, but it can live in any warm blooded animal. Found worldwide, T. gondii affects about one-third of the world's population, 60 million of which are Americans. Most people have no symptoms, but some experience a flu-like illness. Those with suppressed immune systems, however, can develop a serious infection if they are unable to fend off T. gondii.

A healthy immune system responds vigorously to T. gondii in a manner that parallels how the immune system attacks a tumor.

"We know biologically this parasite has figured out how to stimulate the exact immune responses you want to fight cancer," said David J. Bzik, PhD, professor of Microbiology and Immunology, Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth.

In response to T. gondii, the body produces natural killer cells and cytotoxic T cells. These cell types wage war against cancer cells. Cancer can shut down the body's defensive mechanisms, but introducing T. gondii into a tumor environment can jump start the immune system.

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  • (Score: 4, Informative) by frojack on Thursday July 17 2014, @10:20PM

    by frojack (1554) on Thursday July 17 2014, @10:20PM (#70504) Journal

    TFA suggests they were digging around in the cat box.

    It does say that they deactivated the ability to replicate inside humans:

    Since it isn't safe to inject a cancer patient with live replicating strains of T. gondii, Bzik and Fox created "cps," an immunotherapeutic vaccine. Based on the parasite's biochemical pathways, they delete a Toxoplasma gene needed to make a building block of its genome and create a mutant parasite that can be grown in the laboratory but is unable to reproduce in animals or people. Cps is both nonreplicating and safe. Even when the host is immune deficient, cps still retains that unique biology that stimulates the ideal vaccine responses.

    --
    No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
    • (Score: 1) by Zanothis on Friday July 18 2014, @02:41PM

      by Zanothis (3445) on Friday July 18 2014, @02:41PM (#70812)

      I'm suddenly reminded of a conversation in Jurassic Park:

      John, the kind of control you're attempting simply is... it's not possible. If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it's that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, it expands to new territories and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, uh... well, there it is.

      • (Score: 2) by frojack on Friday July 18 2014, @08:01PM

        by frojack (1554) on Friday July 18 2014, @08:01PM (#70955) Journal

        Science teaches. Movies entertain.

        --
        No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
  • (Score: 3, Funny) by Snow on Thursday July 17 2014, @10:20PM

    by Snow (1601) on Thursday July 17 2014, @10:20PM (#70505) Journal

    Pros:
    -- Cute
    -- (potential) Cancer fighting powers

    Cons:
    -- poop (copius quantaties of...)
    -- hair
    -- wakes me up in morning
    -- occational puke on floor
    -- scratches that barely scratch the skin, but somehow burn
    -- cat food all over kitchen floor
    -- cat litter all over the freaking place

    If it wasn't so damn cute....

    • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Thursday July 17 2014, @11:24PM

      by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Thursday July 17 2014, @11:24PM (#70529) Journal

      Cons:

      Move in the burbs: only "wakes me up" and "scratches" remain on that list.

      --
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
      • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @05:09AM

        by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @05:09AM (#70625)

        I'm going on the assumption you mean turning your indoor cat into an outdoor cat.
        Added issues with outdoor critters:
        Fleas
        Rabies from e.g. coons or possums
        Can get eaten by a coyote

        For those who currently have an indoor cat, I assume the purpose is to have a companion nearby.
        If that doesn't change, I don't see the hair issue going away.

        -- gewg_

        • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday July 18 2014, @06:36AM

          by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 18 2014, @06:36AM (#70644) Journal

          Added issues with outdoor critters:
          Fleas

          Yea... naaah. Frontline's good enough - couple of drops every 3 months.

          Rabies from e.g. coons or possums
          Can get eaten by a coyote

          Not here, no (it is believed the presence of Thylarctos plummetus ensures a protection factor).
          At most, some other species of Lyssavirus [wikipedia.org] (or some other more virulent nasties [wikipedia.org] - but those usually through horse transmission).

          If that doesn't change, I don't see the hair issue going away.

          True, but is somehow seriously self-limiting - once it's warm enough, my cat prefers outdoors and the evening fur brushing it's a pleasure (for me - she's an expert in conditioning [wikipedia.org], any cat is). Until it's not warm enough, the hair usually "keeps sticking" on her.

          --
          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by hemocyanin on Thursday July 17 2014, @11:31PM

      by hemocyanin (186) on Thursday July 17 2014, @11:31PM (#70532) Journal

      Cats aren't just cute, they're very tiny Klingons who can deal with anything:

      mean dog:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peLo7E3Q_XE [youtube.com]

      pack of dogs:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_XJOvalGlqU [youtube.com]

      Bear:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wipk5vFUcIQ [youtube.com]

      Babysitter:
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YKT3yopL5gk [youtube.com]

    • (Score: 2) by Darth Turbogeek on Thursday July 17 2014, @11:50PM

      by Darth Turbogeek (1073) on Thursday July 17 2014, @11:50PM (#70538)

      Pros : Vastly less likely to annoy the shit out of me than humans.

    • (Score: 2) by kaszz on Friday July 18 2014, @03:01AM

      by kaszz (4211) on Friday July 18 2014, @03:01AM (#70591) Journal

      I will replace all my lol-cat moviez with lolbug movies ..!

      Hey look it can replicate by itself..c00l ;)

    • (Score: 2) by mendax on Friday July 18 2014, @03:24AM

      by mendax (2840) on Friday July 18 2014, @03:24AM (#70597)

      You obviously don't have anything like my evil cat. She bit me five minutes ago. It's a good thing she's so beautiful and that I am enraptured with her, otherwise I'd have to remind her that CAT is the other white meat [amazon.com].

      --
      It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @01:53AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @01:53AM (#70573)

    > He never knew you could get toxoplasmosis from cat shit

    + Neither did I. What is it?

    > Fuckin' horrible! It's like an abcess in your brain!

    + Ah, fuckin' hell... Then what happened?

    > He starts gettin' these headaches... So he just uses more smack, you know, for the pain, like... and then he has a stroke. A fuckin' stroke. Just like that. Gets home from the hospital, and dies three weeks later. He'd been dead for ages before the neighbors complained about the smell, and got the police to break down the door. Tommy was lyin' face down in a pool of vomit...

    > The kitten was fine.

  • (Score: 2) by Subsentient on Friday July 18 2014, @02:11AM

    by Subsentient (1111) on Friday July 18 2014, @02:11AM (#70579) Homepage Journal

    Hear that? Go get your cat box, fork those tootsie rolls, and enjoy the chocolatey goodness! For health, of course! Mmmmm...

    --
    "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." -Jiddu Krishnamurti
    • (Score: 2) by tibman on Friday July 18 2014, @03:08AM

      by tibman (134) Subscriber Badge on Friday July 18 2014, @03:08AM (#70592)

      Have to fight the dog for those free treats : /

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      SN won't survive on lurkers alone. Write comments.
  • (Score: 4, Informative) by clone141166 on Friday July 18 2014, @03:59AM

    by clone141166 (59) on Friday July 18 2014, @03:59AM (#70604)

    Toxoplasma Gondii is a uniquely dangerous pathogen that has actually been in the news quite a lot previously for negative reasons.

    Typically it lives in mice and cats and actually messes with the brains of mice to change their response when smelling cat urine from fear to attraction. This is done to increase the chances that the mouse will be eaten by a cat and thus allow T. Gondii to spread.

    It has also been linked to increased self-directed violence and suicide in humans. It is very difficult to detect T. Gondii in adult humans, but a comprehensive study was performed in Denmark on 45,788 women by checking for its presence in newborn children and thereby asserting that the mother was infected with the pathogen.

    Link to paper on the study in Denmark here:
    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22752117/ [nih.gov]

    And Time magazine article on T. Gondii:
    http://healthland.time.com/2012/07/03/are-cat-ladies-more-likely-to-attempt-suicide/ [time.com]

    It's good that they have potentially figured out how to use T. Gondii's unique properties for a useful purpose, but I wouldn't recommend going out and getting yourself infected with it on purpose (it is next to impossible to get rid of after you have been infected).

    The best ways to avoid this pathogen is to avoid eating uncooked meat and dispose of any fecal matter excreted by your felines within 24 hours (it actually takes 24 hours for the pathogen to become transmissible within cat fecal matter).

    • (Score: 2) by Nerdfest on Friday July 18 2014, @04:16AM

      by Nerdfest (80) on Friday July 18 2014, @04:16AM (#70609)

      In very simplified terms, I've read that it makes men more aggressive and women more slutty.

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @05:07AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @05:07AM (#70623)

    First, an interview with the cancer researcher responsible for this recent experiment:
    http://www.vice.com/read/we-got-an-explanation-from-the-scientist-behind-that-cat-poop-cancer-treatment-discovery-717 [vice.com]

    Second, how toxoplasma gondii might help teams win the world cup:
    http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/science/2010/07/landon_donovan_needs_a_cat.html [slate.com]

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @09:08AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday July 18 2014, @09:08AM (#70698)

      On the end of the second article:

      "Correction, July 2, 2010:The original article assigned four World Cup trophies to Germany instead of three."

      Well, the German team now did its own correction of that mistake. ;-)

  • (Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday July 18 2014, @10:22AM

    by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Friday July 18 2014, @10:22AM (#70719) Journal

    > T. gondii affects about one-third of the world's population, 60 million of which are Americans

    Thanks for that pointless factoid dropped into the middle of TFS there. In the name of fairness, next time you make reference to a global phenomenom, please be sure to add a sentence that specifies the number of Sumatrans or Congolese under discussion.

    • (Score: 1) by dak664 on Friday July 18 2014, @01:24PM

      by dak664 (2433) on Friday July 18 2014, @01:24PM (#70771)

      And it is wrong on several counts: there are more than 60 million Americans; they do not comprise 1/3 of the world population; and total population is way more than 180 million.

      • (Score: 1) by mathinker on Friday July 18 2014, @01:41PM

        by mathinker (3463) on Friday July 18 2014, @01:41PM (#70779)

        Urk! The Grammar Nazi pendant in my head cannot stop fighting the Math Nazi pedant! Help!

      • (Score: 2) by GreatAuntAnesthesia on Friday July 18 2014, @02:55PM

        by GreatAuntAnesthesia (3275) on Friday July 18 2014, @02:55PM (#70825) Journal

        > And it is wrong on several counts: there are more than 60 million Americans; they do not comprise 1/3 of the world population; and total population is way more than 180 million.

        I think what TFS was trying to say is this:
        One third of the world's population are affected by cat flu. About 60 million of those infectees are Americans. That (combined with your numbers above) implies that the infection level in the US is less than the global average of one third. Still, I couldn't care less - I want to know what the infection rate is in Lichtenstein.

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 21 2014, @04:26PM

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 21 2014, @04:26PM (#71871)

          The majority of SN readers are North Americans. So fuck off with your globalism.

  • (Score: 2) by nitehawk214 on Friday July 18 2014, @02:30PM

    by nitehawk214 (1304) on Friday July 18 2014, @02:30PM (#70805)

    T. gondii affects about one-third of the world's population, 60 million of which are Americans.

    Cats or people?

    --
    "Don't you ever miss the days when you used to be nostalgic?" -Loiosh