2012: Genes Spread Through Memes: A silly but maybe true hypothesis

I think this is amusing…

toxoplasmosis is a parasite spread through mice to cats to humans. In the case of mice the toxoplasmosis causes the mice to be dopey and more easily distractable – so they are more easily caught and spread to cats. Humans are infected through spending time with cats and coming in contact with the feces. In humans it’s been shown to have minor effects but one is that it makes people more distractable too – like the mice.

Hypothesis:

1. This is why there are more cat than dog photos on the internet.

2. People seeing cat photos makes them more inclined to adopt cats – so the toxoplasmosis gene is an example of a parasite spreading through internet meme – a gene that has successfully used an internet meme to spread.

This may not be original one of those ideas in the “ideosphere” I just saw this in my drafts from 2012 I thought to post – probably because I wanted to check and find the original articles – I can’t now, but I thought this was amusing.