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Parasite gives wolves what it takes to be pack leaders
- FirstLvR 4y agoThis whole post and comments are just incredible … can we predict one society success purely on parasite composition?
- jokoon 4y agoI'm still not very convinced of the scientific definition of "pack leader". Behavior science is sensitive to interpretation, in my view. It's a human bias to see human concepts in other species.
- jonplackett 4y agoWhat do you mean by that? I thought it was a pretty accepted/normal thing for wolves to have a pack leader?
- goodpoint 4y agohttps://phys.org/news/2021-04-wolf-dont-alpha-males-females.html https://phys.org/news/2021-04-wolf-dont-alpha-males-females.... https://wolf.org/headlines/44265/ https://wolf.org/headlines/44265/
- goodpoint 4y agoAnd why the silent downvotes?
- jonplackett 4y agoNo idea, but thanks for the article!
- jokoon 4y agoExactly. Once one can accept to take a step back, ask questions and maybe understand that politics and culture can often shape our perception of how things work, that's when it becomes possible to observe with a fresh look. I often have tried to criticize the myth of the alpha male, but I often crash into people who seem so entrenched in their own normed vision of the world. Please read this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_dominance_orientation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_dominance_orientation It's pretty eye opening, it goes beyond conservative politics. It explains how people want to believe dominance is a real thing.
- Trouble_007 4y agoAlso; Grey wolves infected with this parasite are more likely to become pack leaders : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33738581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33738581
- the_af 4y agoIt's the same news, reported in two different places.
- Trouble_007 4y agoI reiterate; Toxoplasma gondii : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii Risk factors for human infection : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii#Immune_response_and_behavior_alterations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii#Immune_respo...
- the_af 4y agoBefore, you linked to another article about wolves which was basically the same article that is linked at the top of this thread. So "also, Grey Wolves" -- the "also" is redundant, since it's about the same wolves both times, and the finding is the same.
- Trouble_007 4y agoLink to * * Comments * * Which is what I posted [ 1 day ago - 5 comments ]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33738581 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33738581 Which is related to the Link of the actual Article; *Grey wolves infected with this parasite are more likely to become pack leaders* : https://abcnews.go.com/US/grey-wolves-infected-parasite-become-pack-leaders-scientists/story?id=93487254
- the_af 4y agoI'm sorry, I truly don't follow what you're trying to say. What does the "also" mean, it's always the same story! There's no additional information, it's always about the same study about the same parasite on the same group of wolves! I'm not pulling your leg, I truly don't follow your point.
- machina_ex_deus 4y agoImagine how dystopian that would sound in humans, like some science fiction horror. "All the leaders are secretly infected by parasites". Sounds like interesting sci fi movie premise.
- mantas 4y agoYou don't need science finction. Just on following on some online communities: > :s/reptiloids/parasites/g
- tomjuggler 4y agoWith one third of humans infected it's more like the plot of an upcoming documentary..
- cruano 4y ago> testosterone and dopamine production is increased Or advertisement
- BlueTemplar 4y agoNow I understand the purpose of trigger warnings...
- yesbut 4y agoThere is the idea that anyone that wants to be a leader probably shouldn't be a leader. These are the types of people who crave being in positions of authority over others. They'll step on anyone they need to in order to get the the top. They might be the leader, but they usually aren't necessarily the types of people that are looking out for the best interests of the people they lead.
- stncls 4y agoI was once part of a department that was so well-managed and functional that I couldn't quite believe it. Then when time came choose a new department head, someone told me that they had always specifically avoided people who wanted to lead the department for the job.
- 988747 4y agoAnd I always thought that wolves live in families, not packs, and what it takes to be a "pack leader" is being the father of other wolves.
- sethammons 4y agoI mentioned the article title to my high school animal enthusiast and that is the first thing they said; haven't researched it yet but it seems like these scientists would be "in the know."
- the_af 4y agoI had the same thought. And also, the whole classification of "alpha male", "beta male" of the pack has been debunked, since there's no pack, just the wolves family. So the "betas" are actually the young adults of the family, and the "alphas" the father and mother.
- tgv 4y agoI don't see anything in that article that makes the conclusion inevitable. It's a remarkable correlation for sure, but unfortunately it doesn't go beyond that. There's no pathway from infection to leadership (just a vague hypothesis that doesn't resemble the mechanism in rats and hyenas), and it doesn't look as if they looked at uninfected pack leaders. Perhaps pack leaders or strays eat more dead cat, or some other intermediate host of T.gondii. Perhaps they sampled in the wrong time frame. The full article might have more info, but the linked one doesn't.
- simonh 4y agoThey looked at animals that were and were not infected, throughout their lives, and saw what they did, so they knew whether the animals were infected or not before they became pack leaders. From the article: >The team looked at 256 blood samples from 229 wolves, which had been carefully watched throughout their lives, and had their life histories and social status recorded. Meyer and Cassidy found that infected wolves were 11 times more likely than uninfected ones to leave their birth family to start a new pack, and 46 times more likely to become pack leaders — often the only wolves in the pack that breed.
- fergal_reid 4y agoHavent read the paper, but your quote doesn't change the core point that it could be correlation. E.g. perhaps aggression makes them more likely to eat infected animals and also more likely to challenge for leadership.
- Mistletoe 4y agoI had this thought but doesn’t the pack mostly eat the same thing?
- brohee 4y agoNot those that set out on their own, and thus are more likely to catch rodent while alone than feasting on big prey with the pack... Unless they can pinpoint the infection and a subsequent behavior change, it's not super conclusive. It's like concluding catching an IST makes you more promiscuous, even if that would likely be supported by statistics...
- ChrisMarshallNY 4y ago> Up to one-third of humans might be chronically infected. That explains so much...
- winReInstall 4y agoSyphillis makes you artistically brilliant, gondi makes you fearless, never felt so good, then just before exitus. So, in conclusion, if the vector has requirements, the infection will try to make the host capable of fullfilment. If the infection needs sugar, the mitochondria, will make the amobea crawl to algea.
- shubb 4y agoThank you for the final line, I never realised that
- winReInstall 4y agoIts all just thesis, nothing is proven yet.
- wongarsu 4y agoObviously it doesn't always happen, a cold doesn't make you more sociable. On the other hand a cold virus that managed to pull that off through some freak mutation would easily outcompete all other variants. Mitochondria are a bit special in that it's mutually beneficial, but the same could be said about the above cold virus, if the other symptoms are mild enough.
- winReInstall 4y agoUrge to travel with corona intensifies.
- arein3 4y agoIf 30-50% of people have toxoplasma gondii, "gondi makes you fearless, never felt so good, then just before exitus" sounds like a exaggeration, because I doubt 50% are fearless, never felt so good.
- bof_ 4y agoTell me about it.
- LightG 4y agoThe next crop of YC applicants should be interesting ...
- Frummy 4y agoWhere can I buy infected cat feces? Maybe when aliens visit us they will say, no, step aside humans, we are here to talk to the true leaders of the planet. Bring out your microscopes.
- yayr 4y ago> Physical and behavioural changes have also been found in people: testosterone and dopamine production is increased and more risks are taken. ... > Up to one-third of humans might be chronically infected. That is certainly an interesting research vector...
- stared 4y agoPotetnially related: "Men Who Owned Cats As Kids May Have Higher Psychosis Risk" https://www.iflscience.com/men-who-owned-cats-as-kids-may-have-higher-psychosis-risk-study-suggests-63426 https://www.iflscience.com/men-who-owned-cats-as-kids-may-ha...
- msrenee 4y agoThat article uses psychosis and schizophrenia interchangeably. There's also no mention of the familial nature of schizophrenia. There's a genetic link in many cases and there's been work in that area that's starting to identify particular genes that are associated with the disorder. It could be that infection with T. gondii is sometimes the difference between simply having a predisposition towards schizophrenia and actually developing the symptoms. Pot use in the late teens and early 20s can have the same effect. It doesn't cause schizophrenia, but it may be a trigger than leads a genetically predisposed individual to develop the disorder.
- Communitivity 4y agoThe research results are an interesting find and good work. They indicate a clear need for more research. They aren't conclusive as is, at least with the limited info I found (I haven't found a papers archive from The Wolf Society 2022 conference, so I had to go by press articles). Sample size of 229 seems small, considering the diversity among wolf packs. For example, were these wolves from one state vs multiple states. Getting a larger sample size would be hard but not impossible if the study lasted a long time. Science is about building a stairway - 99% steps 1% momentous landings that built on all the steps before them. This work is a good solid step.
- pvaldes 4y agoYep, who would imagine that animals in societies tend to discriminate against the ill and diseased.
- codexjourneys 4y agoBringing my comments over from the other submission: Not just wolves. Toxoplasma infection also "may make people look more attractive to the opposite sex": https://www.earth.com/news/parasite-makes-infected-people-lo https://www.earth.com/news/parasite-makes-infected-people-lo... Is this because it increases risk-taking behavior? Who knows, but it's interesting that something with potentially significant health drawbacks may have enough benefits that it's evolved to coexist with us (up to 50% of people carry it). Overall, it looks increasingly like microbes shape our behavior and emotional health: https://www.science.org/content/article/evidence-mounts-gut- https://www.science.org/content/article/evidence-mounts-gut-...
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- helsinkiandrew 4y ago> Cassidy found that infected wolves were 11 times more likely than uninfected ones to leave their birth family to start a new pack, and 46 times more likely to become pack leaders I thought we now believe that wolf packs are purely family units - mother, father and their cubs. There's no alpha wolves leading a pack of other male and female wolves, just stray wolves and family units. So a wolf pack is only comprised of the leader and its cubs. https://wolf.org/wolf-info/wild-kids/wolf-families https://wolf.org/wolf-info/wild-kids/wolf-families
- henrydark 4y agoI don't k ow anything about wolves or parasites, but those two things don't contradict each other. Maybe wolves with the parasite are exactly more likely to form such a family unit
- helsinkiandrew 4y agoPerhaps its just bad wording and they mean "they are 11 times more likely than uninfected ones to leave their birth family (BUT don't necessarily start a new pack), and 46 times more likely to (create a pack and) become pack leaders.
- stared 4y agoIt is how I read that. They start their faimilies. Alpha male/female = parents. A pack is their extended family.
- Alan_Dillman 4y agoSure, but there has to be stray wolves forming new packs. Every pack in existence started that way. While there is no fight for who will be "The Alpha", obviously there is a patriarch and matriarch of the pack.
- deafpolygon 4y agoSo.. Chad parasites. I'm off to find a parasite, wish me luck.
- nix23 4y agoCan we please do the same study with politicians?
- nathan_compton 4y agoCan't wait till pickup artist types are infecting themselves on purpose so they can be more alpha.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- BlueTemplar 4y ago> possibly even increasing their chances of encountering cougars and exposing more members to infection (I'll get my coat.)
- 752963e64 4y ago
- hellfish 4y ago> Up to one-third of humans might be chronically infected. > Infections with toxoplasmosis are associated with a variety of neuropsychiatric and behavioral conditions > Research on human vaccines is ongoing. I say 5 years before we have a moral panic about this
- Invictus0 4y agoWas this entire comment section generated by GPT-3?
- Kognito 4y ago“Semi-dormant tissue cysts form in the brain, eyes and heart muscle, persisting the infection for life” “Can also infect humans” Well that doesn’t give me nightmares at all.
- sva_ 4y ago> In the United States it is estimated that 11% of the population 6 years and older have been infected with Toxoplasma. In various places throughout the world, it has been shown that more than 60% of some populations have been infected with Toxoplasma. https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/toxoplasmosis/epi.html https://www.cdc.gov/parasites/toxoplasmosis/epi.html
- pvaldes 4y agoParasitized wolves (omegas being forced to eat the rotten leftovers) are losers that are often chased off the pack. And most of them die for that. Two titles. Same article; just without the starry-eyed documentary lens
- meindnoch 4y ago"Risky business: linking Toxoplasma gondii infection and entrepreneurship behaviours across individuals and countries" (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30051870/ https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30051870/) >Among professionals attending entrepreneurship events, T. gondii-positive individuals were 1.8× more likely to have started their own business compared with other attendees (n = 197). Finally, after synthesizing and combining country-level databases on T. gondii infection from the past 25 years with the Global Entrepreneurship Monitor of entrepreneurial activity, we found that infection prevalence was a consistent, positive predictor of entrepreneurial activity and intentions at the national scale, regardless of whether previously identified economic covariates were included. "The association of latent toxoplasmosis and level of serum testosterone in humans" (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5994116/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5994116/) >Comparison of testosterone concentrations and control groups showed that testosterone concentration in study group was higher than that in control group with statistically significant difference. "Toxoplasma gondii infection enhances testicular steroidogenesis in rats" (https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/mec.12042 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/mec.12042) >Testosterone, a testicular steroid, is known to reduce fear and enhance sexual attractiveness in males. Here, we show that Toxoplasma gondii infection enhances expression of genes involved in facilitating synthesis of testosterone, resulting in greater testicular testosterone production in male rats.
- eloff 4y agoI can see the headlines now "you won't believe this one weird trick for bigger gains and better performance in bed".
- Silverback_VII 4y agoWhat is the legal framework for a product that infects people with "beneficial" parasites ?
- hanniabu 4y agoJust call it a supplement and you can do anything
- jjtheblunt 4y agoit would be fascinating to see a plot of toxoplasma gondii hitting the first page of HN vs time. It seems periodic, and i'm not kidding. (kinda like Jodi Foster in Contact with the headphones on) Not this time, but usually it's a revelation about the protozoan with mice being fearless around cats, or about humans living with cats, with associated proposals of drama, perhaps to drive pageviews.
- Kiboneu 4y agoIt’s impressive to see T. Gondii evolve to influence their hosts to write positive PR. Joking aside, it makes sense to me that higher risk behavior on the host’s part would increase a parasite’s spread, since some of the energy that drives risk also increases the rate of physical interaction with the world; like a free roaming particle with a lot of momentum on a substrate. It is good to see more research looking into this since this seems to be low hanging fruit compared to possible compound effects of t. gondii influence on society.
- psychphysic 4y agoHa! It's good research but there is a major caveat I didn't see it in this press release. Before they answer questions like yours they need to have tracked when infection occured. Simple conundrum are wolves who are infected with t. Gondii more likely to leave their pack? Or are wolves that leave their pack more likely to get infected? Similarly for pack leaders. It might seem obtuse to ask for this but it is important to disentangle somewhat cause and correlation. In humans it's theorised to increase risk of car accidents (based on a french study monitoring speeding and traffic rule obedience).
- ShamelessC 4y agoProbably a good idea to critique the paper, not the press release. I haven't read it but for all you know they could have discussed this at length.
- sigmoid10 4y agoThey discuss it briefly and it turns out the above commenter is 100% correct in his assessment. Relevant quote from the paper: >Given the correlational nature of the study, observed patterns may not be causal; for example, higher risk-takers could be more likely to be both entrepreneurial and exposed to T. gondii [...], thereby driving the correlation. Remember that while it might sound amazing that a parasite could steer higher cognitive functions towards something as abstract as being more entrepreneurial, there is no practicable mechanism suggested so far and until someone figures out if it is even possible, all these studies are to be handled with care.
- rainmaker124 4y agoKeep in mind that this is simply an observational study and has all the usual caveats around confounders and biases. It supports a causal hypothesis, but like any simple observational study, that support is weak and unconvincing.
- c3534l 4y agoHow do we know that risk-taking doesn't lead to a higher rates of parasitic infection?
- nahuel0x 4y agoIf a parasite gives the host a competitive advantage, is really a parasite?
- parhamn 4y agoI really don't get T. Gondii. I read all these article about how it might be affecting us, a source of mental health disorders, so on and so on. And it is very common in household cats + a lot of people already have it. CDC says, "While the parasite is found throughout the world, more than 40 million people in the United States may be infected with the Toxoplasma parasite." I assume present tense means currently infected? Genuinely curious, why aren't we doing an annual anti-parasitic or something given the drugs are relatively benign?
- tehchromic 4y agoI had heard the relationship between countries with better football teams having higher rates of t gondii, now it all makes sense
- IngvarLynn 4y agoReminds me stories about school of fish following robot: https://newatlas.com/robofish-leeds-univiersity/15588/ https://newatlas.com/robofish-leeds-univiersity/15588/ or lobotomized fish (this looks more like anecdote than real research, i could not find the source). Perhaps it is impossible to distinguish stupid boldness from real vision without complex communication.
- drooby 4y agoOr could it be that wolves that are already more likely to hunt cougars (thus eat them and get the parasite) have high risk taking behavior and are thus more likely to be pack leaders? And the parasite actually has a benign influence on the host?
- trenchgun 4y agoCould be, but there are mechanisms which explain how toxoplasma creates the risky bhaviour: by increasing testosterone production. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33742779 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33742779
- snshn 4y agoElon Musk is probably full of 'em.
- manv1 4y agoPussy changes everything?
- californiadreem 4y agoSqueaky meal gets the grease.
- majkinetor 4y agoFucking amazing... How does it know what gene to promote? Its hard to beleive that such "primitive" organizm promotes exploration and risky behavior in number of different animals.
- deleted 4y ago[deleted]
- tonis2 4y ago"11 times more likely than uninfected ones to leave their birth family to start a new pack, and 46 times more likely to become pack leaders — often the only wolves in the pack that breed." Wouldnt it be highly preferable, from the parasites side of evolution, that only the males, that have parasite infection will be able to breed ? Toxoplasma trying to create their own empire probably.
- PortleyFool 4y agoObviously false.