American playwright Ben Hecht once said, “He was in love with life as an ant on a summer blade of grass”. If only Ben knew about the nanoscale war within. I’m talking about one (actually two) of the most fascinating phenomenon ever discovered.
It all starts with the lancet fluke—which instead of calling it by its scientific name (dicrocoelium dedriticum), we’ll call it “Flukey the Parasite”. It lives inside a cows’ liver, mates with others and then sends its eggs out with the cow’s waste. Now here’s where evolution (or co-evolution) and biological networks get fascinating. First—gross as it is (especially for Frenchmen), snails come along and eat the cow waste (with Flukey’s eggs in it). The eggs hatch, infect the snail and drill into the snail’s digestive tract—like a Trojan horse. Next, the snail fights back. It internally douses the mini-Flukeys in slime, and excretes them, leaving them in its slimy trails.
Along comes an ant—to whom the slime is like a fresh swimming pool on a scorching summer day. It dives in, gets a mouthful of slime and a gut full of lancet flukes. The mini-Flukes then move around and—get this—eventually take over its nerve cells. These little buggers are actually controlling the ants’ behavior now. Night falls, the air is cooler and the ant climbs a blade of grass, digs its teeth in and hangs there all night. Hot temperatures toast the parasites, so they steer the ant to cooler areas. It keeps doing this every night, until eventually a cow comes and eats the grass it clings to. And tada! Flukey the Parasite has reproduced and ended up back inside a new host. Wash, rinse, repeat. Except for one thing: the cows don’t want the parasites—so they avoid patches of land with the greenest colored grass. Green grass signals it’s been fertilized by other cows. The risk isn’t eating another’s waste—the real risk is eating these kamikaze suicide bomber ants. The greener pastures grow while the other grass gets eaten up. The cow population grows, until it’s eventually forced to go to the greener grass. Boom: they get infected, eat less, reproduce less and die. Rinse wash, repeat. So these little buggers actually regulate the grasslands!
Remind you of anything in modern life? I’ll spell it out in a moment. But first there’s a Persian proverb that says, “when the cat and the mouse agree—the grocer is ruined.”
Turns out—an even more recent version of this parasite taking over the minds of a host has been found: in mice. The bug infects the mouse’s brain and instead of feeling fear when it encounters (or smells) a cat—it is attracted to it. It nearly runs right into its mouth. The parasite called “toxoplasma” needs to end up in the cat’s stomach to reproduce. It hijacks the mouse’s brain to do its bidding by making the mice less fearful.
Some scientists have suggested—to much controversy and political in-correctness—that certain religious ideas (“memes” instead of “genes”) might be viruses of the mind. Think: suicide bombers. The so-called “meme” gets passed on; the host gets sacrificed.
Speaking of unpopular and controversial ideas, I must share a few provocative excerpts from author Michael Crichton. He’s made a fortune selling alarmist fiction. Now he is out publicly fighting what he sees as alarmist non-fiction—advocating rationality and science.
The topic on which he speaks will see a big announcement next week—especially from the all-star team at Lux Research. Stay tuned. Here’s straight from Crichton:
“I want to pause here and talk about the notion of consensus, and the rise of what has been called consensus science. I regard consensus science as an extremely pernicious development that ought to be stopped cold in its tracks. Historically, the claim of consensus has been the first refuge of scoundrels; it is a way to avoid debate by claiming that the matter is settled. Whenever you hear the consensus of scientists agree on something or other, reach for your wallet, because you’re being had.
“Let’s be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science consensus is irrelevant. What is relevant is reproducible results. The greatest scientists in history are great precisely because they broke with the consensus.”
[JW: remember there was once a book published called, “100 Scientists Against Einstein”, refuting relativity. Einstein’s retort? “If I were wrong, one would have been enough.”]
“I would just remind you of the now-familiar pattern by which these things are established. Evidentiary uncertainties are glossed over in the unseemly rush for an overarching policy, and for grants to support the policy by delivering findings that are desired by the patron. Next, the isolation of those scientists who won’t get with the program, and the characterization of those scientists as outsiders and “skeptics” in quotation marks-suspect individuals with suspect motives, industry flunkies, reactionaries, or simply anti-environmental nutcases. In short order, debate ends, even though prominent scientists are uncomfortable about how things are being done. When did “skeptic” become a dirty word in science?”
“To predict anything about the world a hundred years from now is simply absurd.
“Look: If I was selling stock in a company that I told you would be profitable in 2100, would you buy it? Or would you think the idea was so crazy that it must be a scam?
Let's think back to people in 1900 in, say, New York. If they worried about people in 2000, what would they worry about? Probably: Where would people get enough horses? And what would they do about all the horse [waste]? Horse pollution was bad in 1900, think how much worse it would be a century later, with so many more people riding horses?
But of course, within a few years, nobody rode horses except for sport. And in 2000, France was getting 80% its power from an energy source that was unknown in 1900. Germany, Switzerland, Belgium and Japan were getting more than 30% from this source, unknown in 1900. Remember, people in 1900 didn't know what an atom was. They didn't know its structure. They also didn't know what a radio was, or an airport, or a movie, or a television, or a computer, or a cell phone, or a jet, an antibiotic, a rocket, a satellite, an MRI, ICU, IUD, IBM, IRA, ERA, EEG, EPA, IRS, DOD, PCP, HTML, internet. interferon, instant replay, remote sensing, remote control, speed dialing, gene therapy, gene splicing, genes, spot welding, heat-seeking, bipolar, prozac, leotards, lap dancing, email, tape recorder, CDs, airbags, plastic explosive, plastic, robots, cars, liposuction, transduction, superconduction, dish antennas, step aerobics, smoothies, twelve-step, ultrasound, nylon, rayon, teflon, fiber optics, carpal tunnel, laser surgery, laparoscopy, corneal transplant, kidney transplant, AIDS…None of this would have meant anything to a person in the year 1900. They wouldn't know what you are talking about.”
Contrarian thinking that creates a richer discussion. Thanks to Michael Critchton for that.
Thanks Basesecu that create stupid discussion.
