

Cats might be carrying mind-controlling protozoan - aiurtourist
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2012/03/how-your-cat-is-making-you-crazy/8873/

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aiurtourist
> Jaroslav Flegr is no kook. And yet, for years, he suspected his mind had
> been taken over by parasites that had invaded his brain. So the prolific
> biologist took his science-fiction hunch into the lab. What he’s now
> discovering will startle you. Could tiny organisms carried by house cats be
> creeping into our brains, causing everything from car wrecks to
> schizophrenia? A biologist’s science- fiction hunch is gaining credence and
> shaping the emerging science of mind- controlling parasites.

Pretty out there. Specifically, Flegr describes the changes to his
personality:

> For example, he says, he thought nothing of crossing the street in the
> middle of dense traffic, “and if cars honked at me, I didn’t jump out of the
> way.” He also made no effort to hide his scorn for the Communists who ruled
> Czechoslovakia for most of his early adulthood. “It was very risky to openly
> speak your mind at that time,” he says. “I was lucky I wasn’t imprisoned.”
> And during a research stint in eastern Turkey, when the strife-torn region
> frequently erupted in gunfire, he recalls being “very calm.” In contrast, he
> says, “my colleagues were terrified. I wondered what was wrong with myself.”

