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BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works ⁨2⁩ ⁨days⁩ ago

There’s prisons where, if you behave good, you get to adopt a cat. Only the Reddit link due to my exorbitant laziness: eu.indystar.com/story/news/local/…/5798291002/

Basically they’re strays or shelter cats. If the inmate behaves bad, they lose the cat. When they get released, they can keep the cat.

Cats are cool. I didn’t like them very much and was like “why do you get a cat than a dog? You can do more with a dog, and you can understand what dogs want” before I found my cat. I now understand cat language.

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Dasus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago

I now understand cat language.

Nah, it’s just the parasites in their poop which infest your brain and make you ignore what little assholes they are.

In rodents, T. gondii alters behavior in ways that increase the rodents’ chances of being preyed upon by felids. Support for this “manipulation hypothesis” stems from studies showing that T. gondii-infected rats have a decreased aversion to cat urine while infection in mice lowers general anxiety, increases explorative behaviors and increases a loss of aversion to predators in general. Because cats are one of the only hosts within which T. gondii can sexually reproduce, such behavioral manipulations are thought to be evolutionary adaptations that increase the parasite’s reproductive success since rodents that do not avoid cat habitations will more likely become cat prey. The primary mechanisms of T. gondii–induced behavioral changes in rodents occur through epigenetic remodeling in neurons that govern the relevant behaviors (e.g. hypomethylation of arginine vasopressin-related genes in the medial amygdala, which greatly decrease predator aversion).

en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toxoplasma_gondii#Behavio…

They say it’s “generally asymptomatic in humans”, but that’s just the parasites talking.

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- BudgetBandit@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
  I’ve fallen too deep in this rabbit hole… I’ll be back with a statement once I’m done.
  
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  - Dasus@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨day⁩ ago
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