On this Mother's day, from the not-at-all sensationalist special, In the Womb: Extreme Animals!
Parasitic wasps infected with a nudivirus over 100 million years ago lead to this:
I hope you watched to the end for the full effect. Geez, thanks, Mom!
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11 comments:
I love the camera shots from inside the caterpillar. Bravo National Geographic!
I don't want to be get near a wasp or a wasp virus.
I wondered if those shots were faked. The caterpillar seemed a little filled with water, and the wasp larvae seemed a lot less translucent on the inside. If they were puppets, they were well-puppeted, though.
Hey, Fugu, have any types of extreme human behaviors been linked to infection of parasitic DNA?
God, I hate nature.
does mad cow count?
I guess I was thinking more about serial murder, or eating poop, or getting defensive.
Viral DNA has been hiding out in our genome for ages and I wouldn't be surprised if some of it has affected our personality, but I don't know of anything as extreme as like these guys. And yeah there's also acute brain infections that can cause personality changes (HIV, syphilis, mad cow...).
The best thing that comes to mind though is toxoplasma for cat lovers--the parasite is known to cause rats to loooove cats, thus getting themselves eaten more often and complete the parasite's life-cycle. There's studies coming out that they might affect human personality, too (this author suggests that the infection is so prevalent that it's affected whole cultures). But I'm not sure if anyone knows if it's a DNA thing or chemicals.
Oh! And this guy was on boingboing this morning!
If I could bet money on it the nature/nurture argument, I think I'd put it on 100% nature. I think the question itself might be something of a vanity.
Yay! Just fortuitously came across this!
I applaud our immortal creator for #7--Zombie Fish Tongue!
Obviously designed out of the goodness of his heart, I agree! And to really appreciate #1--Zombie Snail Head--you need to see this video.
And obviously he approves of scenes like these in his benevolenceness!
The cat parasite story is strange and terrifying.
I'm going to try to stop looking at people and wonder if they've been infected.
Fugu - do you have any thoughts on whether the inside-the-caterpillar shots are real?
I hoping National Geographic hasn't trashed its journalistic ethics and fed us fake images... Sigh.
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