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Chapter 4

TOXOPLASMA

Flip a coin Tails? Relax

Heads? You&039;ve got parasites in your brain

That&039;s right Half of us carry the Toxoplasondii parasite But don&039;t reach for the power drill just yet

Toxoplasma is microscopic Huot it, you&039;ll probably never even know In fact, toxoplasma doesn&039;t even want to be in your head Trapped inside your thick skull, under assault by your i evolutionary Game Over

Toxoplasestive systes Then, when kitty takes a crap, these eggs wind up on the ground, waiting for other scurrying creatures Like, say, rats

A quick word about rats: They&039;re basically parasite subway trains, carrying the a vector Rats go everywhere in the world, and they breed like crazy Catching a ride on the Rat Express is a major way that diseases have evolved to spread theets into a rat, the parasite starts to es to its host&039;s brain If a nor that smells like a cat, it freaks out and runs away But toxoplasma-infected rats actually like the smell of cats Kitty peeto find the source

Which is a cat Which eats them

And that makes toxoplasma happy, because toxoplasma really, really wants to live in the stoeeks have a phrase for what cats are to toxoplasma: the "final host"

A final host is the place where a parasite can live happily ever after, getting free food, having lots of babies Most parasites live into reach their final host, the ultimate vectorparasite heaven

Toxoplaset to its heaven It et eaten Spooky, huh?