Gentlemen, You Now Have a Medical Excuse for Speeding

Imagine, if you will, that you’ve been pulled over by a member of the species Homo Sapiens Coperofficus.

“Do you know how fast you were going?” It’s the timeless question.

You stay silent, knowing that ignorance is bliss.

“I clocked you back there going one. Hundred. And. Fifty! Five!!”

You pat yourself on the back because you’re wearing your full-face today. A Nazi pudding bowl does nothing to deflect Angry Cop Spittle. Then you take a moment to gather yourself before you respond, because a situation like this is a serious matter. “But officer,” you say, “I’m infected with Toxoplasma gondii!”

SAY WHAT?

Toxoplasma gondii, aka Toxoplasma, aka Toxo, is a parasite that infects the brains of rats and makes them sexually attracted to cat piss. Why cat piss? Because in order for Toxo to reproduce, it needs a certain set of environmental conditions, conditions most commonly found inside the guts of cats. And the quickest way to get from inside a rat to the inside of a cat is by turning the rat into today’s lunch special. Instead of using the brute-force method and crippling the rat — so it couldn’t run away, for instance — Toxo takes the insidious approach of hijacking the fear and pleasure centers in the rat’s brain.

That’s nice, but what does this have to do with motorcycling?

Toxo can infect humans. It’s widely known that Toxo adversely affects fetal development, thus the warnings for pregnant women to stay far away from cat feces. What’s not so well known is that Toxo has other effects in developed humans. We already know that Toxo can screw with the fear and pleasure centers in a rat’s brain, but what about a human’s?

I’ll let the scientist speak for himself:

“A small literature is coming out now reporting neuropsychological testing on men who are Toxo-infected, showing that they get a little bit impulsive. Women less so, and this may have some parallels perhaps with this whole testosterone aspect of the story that we’re seeing. And then the truly astonishing thing: two different groups independently have reported that people who are Toxo-infected have three to four times the likelihood of being killed in car accidents involving reckless speeding… there was an older surgeon, who said, ‘if you ever get organs from a motorcycle accident death, check the organs for Toxo. I don’t know why, but you find a lot of Toxo.’” — Dr. Robert Sopalsky

And that, dear readers, is what I call a money quote.

For more on this subject, see Guided by Parasites: Toxoplasma Modified Humans (via BoingBoing)