A parasite found in cat poo causes higher rate of boy-childs if mom to be is infected by it. I (cat) shit you not.
Researchers in the Czech Republic collected medical records from 1,803 newborn babies between 1996 and 2004 and checked them for information on the mothers and babies including gender, the number of previous pregnancies, and the mother's levels of toxoplasma antibodies.They discovered that women whose antibody count was high - suggesting a substantial infection - had a much higher chance of having baby boys. In most populations the birth rate is around 51% boys, but women infected with toxoplasma had up to a 72% chance of a boy. Toxoplasma causes congenital defects in newborns and can trigger miscarriages, but a link with the gender of newborns has never been identified before.
I have to wonder what motivated this study.
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i think it's probably because there has been a lot of interest recently in how the toxoplasma parasite seems to be a harbinger of aggression and risk taking. since, it seems, those things are often linked to maleness, i can imagine those being the origins of this study.
Isn't that the same organism that make mice less afraid of cats and more likely to be eaten by them?
Yes, I have heard that too - read it in a book somewhere but can't remember the reference for the life of me. I would imagine this study is mostly motivated by a desire to understand toxoplasma, and a very good way to understand any disease is to see what systems it hits. A disease that affects the reproductive system in such a way must have some pretty clear characteristics (and it could help us understand sex-selection mechanisms too, which I think are not too well understood at the moment). Could be just a crap study though (pun kind of intentional).
Plus of course now we know: if north korea fires its new nuke and we get plunged into nuclear winter, we must make sure to boil all cat poo before we eat it, or society will be overwhelmed by a surfeit of boys with very bad breath.
It's not such a giant leap. Toxoplasmosis has long been a problem, as I tried to tell Jessica in her recent cat post.
Also another study showed that people with the latent infection are at least twice as likely to be involved in motor vehicle accidents.
i cat shit you not is now my fave motto. thanks, samhita.
Redemmie-
At the end of the article it actually talks about suicidal rats and how this parasite makes them love sick for cats. Funny.