Two New Studies: Cat Parasite Linked to Mental Illnesses

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Coming into close contact with cats can spread a parasite called Toxoplasma gondii (T. gondii) – also dubbed the “cat poop parasite” – which are linked to schizophrenia and other mental disorders that affect humans.

The cat-carried parasite is the most common in developed countries and can infect any warm-blooded species, according to the Schizophrenia Bulletin. Although most humans don’t suffer any symptoms from the widespread parasite, it can cause the illness T. gondii, which is linked to weeks of flu-like symptoms, blindness and even death, CBS News reports.

Two new studies have now linked the T. gondii parasite to increased rates of mental illness in cat owners who may have had increased exposure to parasitic infection.

“Cat ownership in childhood has now been reported in three studies to be significantly more common in families in which the child is later diagnosed with schizophrenia or another serious mental illness,” write study authors E. Fuller Torrey of the Stanley Medical Research Institute and Dr. Robert H. Yolken of Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

The researchers compared two previous studies that linked childhood cat ownership and the development of schizophrenia later in life from a 1982 mental health survey. A second study by A.L. Sutterland from the Department of Psychiatry at the Academic Medical Centre in Amsterdam reviewed 50 published studies to a T. gondii infection being tied to mental disorders. (Read more from “Study: Cat Parasite Linked to Mental Illnesses” HERE)

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Google Director: Humans Will Be Hybrids by 2030

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Photo Credit: CNN Money In the future, humans are going to be artificially intelligent.

That’s the prediction of Ray Kurzweil, director of engineering at Google (GOOGL, Tech30), who spoke Wednesday at the Exponential Finance conference in New York.

Kurzweil predicts that humans will become hybrids in the 2030s. That means our brains will be able to connect directly to the cloud, where there will be thousands of computers, and those computers will augment our existing intelligence. He said the brain will connect via nanobots — tiny robots made from DNA strands . . .

Kurzweil, who is known as one the world’s leading inventors, has predicted what the future will look like before. In the ’90s, he made 147 predictions for 2009. In 2010, he reviewed his predictions, 86% of which were correct. He gave himself a “B” grade . . .

For those concerned with artificial intelligence taking over the world, Kurzweil said we have a moral imperative to keep developing the technology while controlling for potential dangers. (Read more from “Ray Kurzweil: Humans Will Be Hybrids by 2030” HERE)

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This Blood Test Can Tell You Every Virus You’ve Ever Had

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Researchers have developed a DNA-based blood test that can determine a person’s viral history, a development they hope could lead to early detection of conditions, such as hepatitis C, and eventually help explain what triggers certain autoimmune diseases and cancers.

The new test, known as VirScan, works by screening the blood for antibodies against any of the 206 species of viruses known to infect humans, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Science. The immune system, which churns out specific antibodies when it encounters a virus, can continue to produce those antibodies decades after an infection subsides. VirScan detects those antibodies and uses them as a window in time to create a blueprint of nearly every virus an individual has encountered. It’s a dramatic alternative to existing diagnostic tools, which test only for a single suspected virus.

“The approach is clever and a technological tour de force,” said Ian Lipkin, a professor of epidemiology and director of the Center for Infection and Immunity at Columbia University, who was not involved in the creation of VirScan. “It has the potential to reveal viruses people have encountered recently or many years earlier … Thus, this is a powerful new research tool.”

Scientists on Thursday reported intriguing findings from their initial tests of 569 people they screened using VirScan in the United States, South Africa, Thailand and Peru. They found that the average person has been exposed to 10 of the 206 different species of known viruses — though some people showed exposure to more than double that number.

“Many of those [people] have probably been infected with many different strains of the same virus,” said Stephen Elledge, a professor of genetics and medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and Harvard Medical School, who led the development of VirScan. “You could be infected with many strains of rhinovirus over the course of your life, for instance, and it would show up as one hit.” (Read more from “This Blood Test Can Tell You Every Virus You’ve Ever Had” HERE)

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Watch: Ted Cruz Is Sure Tom Brady Was Framed, and He’s Clear About Who Did It!

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The 2016 candidate for the Republican presidential nomination told a crowd gathered at the home of Republican Massachusetts state Rep. Jim Lyons that he knows who is responsible for deflating the footballs of the Super Bowl champion New England Patriots’ and that quarterback Tom Brady was framed.

The culprit?

None other than Democrat presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton.

“Why do you think she deleted her emails?” he rhetorically asked the cheering crowd.

(Read more from “Ted Cruz Is Sure Tom Brady Was Framed, and He’s Clear About Who Did It!” HERE)

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Psychiatrist: Transgender Is a Mental Disorder; Sex Change Biologically Impossible

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Dr. Paul R. McHugh, the former psychiatrist-in-chief for Johns Hopkins Hospital and its current Distinguished Service Professor of Psychiatry, said that transgenderism is a “mental disorder” that merits treatment, that sex change is “biologically impossible,” and that people who promote sexual reassignment surgery are collaborating with and promoting a mental disorder.

Dr. McHugh, the author of six books and at least 125 peer-reviewed medical articles, made his remarks in a recent commentary in the Wall Street Journal, where he explained that transgender surgery is not the solution for people who suffer a “disorder of ‘assumption’” – the notion that their maleness or femaleness is different than what nature assigned to them biologically.

He also reported on a new study showing that the suicide rate among transgendered people who had reassignment surgery is 20 times higher than the suicide rate among non-transgender people. Dr. McHugh further noted studies from Vanderbilt University and London’s Portman Clinic of children who had expressed transgender feelings but for whom, over time, 70%-80% “spontaneously lost those feelings.”

While the Obama administration, Hollywood, and major media such as Time magazine promote transgenderism as normal, said Dr. McHugh, these “policy makers and the media are doing no favors either to the public or the transgendered by treating their confusions as a right in need of defending rather than as a mental disorder that deserves understanding, treatment and prevention.”

“This intensely felt sense of being transgendered constitutes a mental disorder in two respects. The first is that the idea of sex misalignment is simply mistaken – it does not correspond with physical reality. The second is that it can lead to grim psychological outcomes.” (Read more from “Psychiatrist: Transgender Is Mental Disorder; Sex Change Biologically Impossible” HERE)

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American Woman Killed in Lion Attack at South Africa Animal Park

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A lion killed an American woman and injured a man driving through a private wildlife park in Johannesburg on Monday, a park official said.

The attack occurred at around 2:30 p.m. when a lioness approached the passenger side of the vehicle as the woman took photos and then lunged, said Scott Simpson, assistant operations manager at the Lion Park.

“They had their windows all the way down, which is strictly against policy,” he said. “The lion bit the lady through the window.” The driver then tried to punch the lion and was scratched by the animal . . .

The park would review its policies, said Simpson, but he believes existing safety measures are “more than adequate,” if visitors follow them. Big signs advise visitors to keep their car windows up and drivers entering the park are also handed a paper with the same warning, he said.

Earlier this year, South African media reported that an Australian tourist was bitten by a lion when he was driving in the park with his windows open. In April, a teenager was attacked by a cheetah when he tried to cut through the park on his bicycle, reported local outlet, News24. (Read more from “American Woman Killed in Lion Attack at South Africa Animal Park” HERE)

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92-Year-Old Three-Time Cancer Survivor Becomes Oldest Woman to Complete a Marathon

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Photo Credit: International Business Times Harriette Thompson, 92, became the oldest woman to finish a marathon Sunday, pounding the pavement for more than seven hours in San Diego. Perhaps more remarkably, she did so after surviving cancer three times and despite a recent staph infection in one of her legs.

“I was just really thrilled that I could finish today,” she told the Associated Press after crossing the finish line at the Rock ‘n’ Roll Marathon. Thompson finished the race in 7 hours, 24 minutes and 36 seconds. She fell just short of her time last year — 7 hours, 7 minutes and 42 seconds — which set the record for a woman 90 or older.

Thompson, who is from Charlotte, North Carolina, has run in 17 of the last 18 Rock ‘n’ Roll marathons, each time on behalf of the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. She said she only runs in the San Diego race because of its dedication to the cancer foundation, the Charlotte Observer reported. Thompson lost both her parents and three brothers to cancer. Sydnor Thompson, her husband of 67 years, died in January at the age of 90 after a long battle with cancer.

Harriette Thompson said this race was her most difficult. She set aside training to care for her sick husband, and after he died earlier this year, she underwent treatment on her infected leg, she told the AP. “It’s always harder but this year has been a bad year for me,” she said. (Read more from “92-Year-Old Cancer Survivor Becomes Oldest Woman to Complete a Marathon” HERE)

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Is Charlie Charlie a Harmless Game? Here’s What an Exorcist Has to Say About It

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A game that purports to invoke a Mexican demon – known as “Charlie, Charlie” and considered to be a simplified version of the Ouija board – has gone viral on social media among young people, prompting one exorcist to warn of its dangers.

The game, which has gained significant traction online in recent days, involves a pair of pencils or pens, a sheet of paper, and the invocation of a spirit named “Charlie.”

Scores of short video clips, posted mostly by teens, show players shrieking and running out of view when the pencil apparently moves on its own and points to a “yes” or a “no” after they say a phrase inviting the demon.

Spanish exorcist Jose Antonio Fortea told ACI Prensa that the so-called #CharlieCharlieChallenge involves the very real, occult practice of “calling on spirits.”

In an interview May 27, he warned that “some spirits who are at the root of that practice will harass some of those who play the game.” Even though the priest thinks that players “won’t be possessed” necessarily, the spirit that has been invoked “will stay around for a while.” (Read more from “Is Charlie Charlie a Harmless Game? Here’s What an Exorcist Has to Say About It” HERE)

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Brain Implant That Decodes Intention Will Let Us Probe Free Will

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Imagine a world where you think of something and it happens. For instance, what if the moment you realise you want a cup of tea, the kettle starts boiling?

That reality is on the cards, now that a brain implant has been developed that can decode a person’s intentions. It has already allowed a man paralysed from the neck down to control a robotic arm with unprecedented fluidity.

But the implications go far beyond prosthetics. By placing an implant in the area of the brain responsible for intentions, scientists are investigating whether brain activity can give away future decisions – before a person is even aware of making them. Such a result may even alter our understanding of free will . . .

“These are exciting times,” says Pedro Lopes, who works at the human-computer interaction lab at Hasso Plattner Institute in Potsdam, Germany. “These developments give us a glimpse of an exciting future where devices will understand our intentions as a means of adapting to our plans.”

The implant was designed for Erik Sorto, who was left unable to move his limbs after a spinal cord injury 12 years ago. The idea was to give him the ability to move a stand-alone robotic arm by recording the activity in his posterior parietal cortex – a part of the brain used in planning movements. (Read more from “Brain Implant That Decodes Intention Will Let Us Probe Free Will” HERE)

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Killer Robots Will Leave Humans ‘Utterly Defenseless’ Warns Professor

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Photo Credit: WarnerKiller robots which are being developed by the US military ‘will leave humans utterly defenceless‘, an academic has warned.

Two programmes commissioned by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are seeking to create drones which can track and kill targets even when out of contact with their handlers.

Writing in the journal Nature, Stuart Russell, Professor of Computer Science at the University of California, Berkley, said the research could breach the Geneva Convention and leave humanity in the hands of amoral machines.

“Autonomous weapons systems select and engage targets without human intervention; they become lethal when those targets include humans,” he said.

“Existing AI and robotics components can provide physical platforms, perception, motor control, navigation, mapping, tactical decision-making and long-term planning. They just need to be combined. (Read more from “Killer Robots Will Leave Humans ‘Utterly Defenceless’ Warns Professor” HERE)

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