Star Wars Midi-chlorians On Earth?

Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens was a HUGE success and is being released on Blu-ray and DVD today. Fans seems to be in agreement that J.J. Abrams did a better job reviving the franchise than George Lucas did with the Star Wars prequels, which caused a great disturbance in the Force.


While Jar Jar Binks soured the prequels for most people, one of the other sticking points was the Midi-chlorians. The what? Let's review. In the original series, the Force was described by Obi-Wan Kenobi as "an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together." In episode I, Qui-Gon Jinn delivered the buzzkill message that the mysterious Force actually had a biological explanation. Instead of saying, “The Force is strong with this one”, one may as well say, “The Midi-chlorians are numerous in this one.”


Watching the interview below, Abrams appeared to show disdain for the whole "Midi-chlorian" idea, not even mentioning them in the new film.

According to Wookieepedia, “Midi-chlorians were intelligent microscopic life forms that lived symbiotically inside the cells of all living things. When present in sufficient numbers, they could allow their host to detect the pervasive energy field known as the Force.” A collective groan could be felt through movie theatres worldwide, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror…

To a cell biologist, it sounds like Lucas drew his inspiration from the mitochondria, which are bacteria-like symbionts that work with our cells to provide energy. They even look like they might be cousins (see below). But that is where the similarities end. Unlike Midi-chlorians, mitochondria do not allow us to tap into energy fields…no matter how much we try to quiet our minds to hear our mitochondria speak to us.

Midi-chlorian (left) and mitochondria (right). Brothers from another mother?

 

But a strange and provocative paper by Alexander Panchin and colleagues proposes an unorthodox new idea called the “biomeme hypothesis”, which posits that the impulse behind some religious rituals could be driven by mind-altering parasites.

Let that sink in for a moment. Might your religion, or any number of other activities, be driven in part by parasites or symbionts in your brain? Before you dismiss the idea too quickly, think about the rabies virus. This super tiny virus is notorious for altering the behavior of dogs (and other animals, including people). Rabies can make even the most docile of dogs become uncharacteristically aggressive so that they bite and spread the virus. Rabies virus is just the tip of the iceberg; there is no shortage of parasites that are known to eerily alter their host’s behavior.

Rabies makes dogs aggressive to enhance viral transmission. The virus can get into a new host by causing its current host to bite others.

Central to Panchin’s hypothesis is the idea that certain religious rituals may facilitate the transmission and spread of parasites. The authors site that holy springs and holy water are replete with numerous microbes, including human pathogens. Sacred in Hinduism, the Ganges River probably contains the most, as an estimated 200 million liters of untreated human sewage is dumped into it every day. Bathing in this “purifying” water has led to the development of multiple diseases, such as cholera.  The Hindu “side-roll” ritual is associated with Cutaneous Larva Migrans, also known as “creeping eruption of the skin”, which is caused when the skin becomes infected with parasitic hookworm larvae. Performed in Muslim communities, ritual ablution, which involves irrigation of the sinuses, has been proposed to be a potential risk factor in contracting Naegleria fowleri (the infamous “brain-eating amoeba”) in Muslim communities. Outbreaks of respiratory infectious diseases and meningococcal disease are common amongst Hajj congregation in Mecca. The transmission of herpes has been reported in the Jewish circumcision method known as metzitzah, which involves the sucking of blood from the wound. Finally, many sacred relics are kissed or handled by many worshipers, offering additional routes for the potential transmission of multiple infectious agents.

While it is clearly demonstrable that certain religious rituals have inherent health risks, there currently is no direct evidence that any of the possible infections transmitted can influence the victim’s behavior (other than causing them to see a doctor). Until new data arrives, we are left with the conclusion that the rituals people engage in stem from cultural memes rather than biological. But one thing is clear:  you should use some hand sanitizer next time you dip your fingers in the holy water.

Contributed by:  Bill Sullivan
Follow Bill on Twitter

 

 

Panchin AY, Tuzhikov AI, & Panchin YV (2014). Midichlorians--the biomeme hypothesis: is there a microbial component to religious rituals? Biology direct, 9 (1) PMID: 24990702

Wookiees Are Primates. Or Are We Barking Up The Wrong Tree?

The latest installment in the Star Wars franchise, The Force Awakens, opens on December 18, and is expected to be the movie event of the year! To get the hype machine running at hyper speed, the merchandizing onslaught has begun. New Star Wars merchandise is everywhere: lightsabers, bed sheets, shower curtains, action figures, r/c droids, breakfast cereals, flamethrowers (okay… no flamethrowers).

My personal favorite is the menu of Star Wars-themed sandwiches sold by a local food truck, including the ever-so-delectable Chuebakka. And as I sat eating my Chuebakka for lunch, I couldn’t help wonder – as only a science geek would – if Chewbacca would eat this sandwich in the same way that I do.

Chewbacca meets the "Chuebakka"

Chewbacca is a wookiee from the jungle planet Kashyyyk. Wookiees are known for their high intelligence, brute strength, unwavering loyalty, and short tempers. According to Wookieepedia, George Lucas took his inspiration to create Chewbacca (and the rest of the wookiees) from his dog, Indiana, who would ride shotgun in his car. As revealed in an episode of Animal Planet’s Animal Icons (“Star Wars Creatures”), orangutans and other suspensory primates also inspired Lucas’ creation. And the link to primates, whether living, extinct, or legendary, is undeniable. They are a species of tall, human-like bipeds (i.e., they walk one two legs) with forward-facing eyes, a keen sense of smell, sharp teeth, and opposable thumbs. Because they are a species of tree-climbers, they also possess a number of mammalian anatomical specializations that enable them to live an arboreal lifestyle, including disproportionately high strength for their body size, well-developed back and calf muscles, and retractable claws.

The phylogeny or evolutionary relatedness among animal groups can be ascertained by examining their shared ancestral traits relative to their shared derived traits. For example, primates and dogs are both considered mammals because they share a number of derived traits. Among the most well known of these is the presence of mammary glands that produce milk for newborns to suckle. Additional traits include the presence of hair, sebaceous (oil) glands in the skin, and rearranged accessory bones of the jaw, including those that became the bones of the middle ear: incus, stapes, and malleus.

Evolution, and the paleontology through which it is interpreted, is a historical science. This means that the inferences one can make about the relatedness of one species to another are rooted in the fact that life on Earth has changed over time and the different species that make up Earth’s biodiversity share common ancestry.

Phylogeny of the vertebrates. Each node connecting two branches represents the common ancestor of the two descendent taxa. Major character transformations are indicated on the stems leading up to the nodes. For example, this phylogeny indicates that amniotic eggs evolved in the common ancestor of primates, rodents/rabbits, crocodiles, and dinosaurs/birds; hair, however, evolved sometime after amniotic eggs but prior to the common ancestor of primates and rodents/rabbits. Figure taken from University of California Museum of Paleontology's Understanding Evolution (http://evolution.berkeley.edu).

In the 19^th century, geologist Charles Lyell recognized that processes that alter the Earth’s landscape are gradual, and he postulated that these processes are uniform through time. This idea has since been validated, as we know that plate tectonics alter the shape of the Earth’s crust by small amounts each year, and that over vast stretches of time (millions of years), these small incremental changes leave the landscape looking profoundly different. Lyell’s understanding of the geologic record is known as the Principle of Uniformitarianism, and it was profoundly influential to the writings of Charles Darwin as he formulated his thoughts on biological descent with modification (the underpinning of natural selection) while he sailed around the world aboard the HMS Beagle.

Assuming that the principle of uniformitarianism can be applied a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, we are presented with an opportunity to examine whether wookiees are in fact more dog-like or more primate-like by looking closely at the morphological traits that unite them relative to their own uniquely derived traits. And of course, whether they are more dog-like or primate-like has important implications for whether Chewbacca would eat a Chuebakka like I do. (Truth be told, my behavior is probably better described as more pig-like than primate-like when I eat this sandwich, even though my anatomy is undoubtedly primate).

The genera and species of the mammalian order Primates (pronounced pry-may-tees) are defined morphologically by the possession of large brains relative to body size, stereoscopic vision (forward facing with overlapping visual fields), reduced sense of olfaction (smell) compared to other mammals, and prehensile hands and feet, which includes opposable thumbs and big toes in most species. The reduced sense of smell in primates is considered an evolutionary tradeoff of having a large brain and stereoscopic vision; primates are more reliant on their sense of vision than their sense of smell in order to find food and avoid predators. Most primates also have nails instead of claws on all or most of their digits, and the ones that retain claws on a digit or two use them primarily for grooming.

Dogs are members of the family Canidae, which belongs to the mammalian order Carnivora. Within Carnivora, there are two distinct suborders: Caniformia, which includes those animals that are more dog-like: bears, weasels, badgers, raccoons, and pinnipeds (seals, sea lions, and walruses); and Feliformia, which includes those animals that are more cat-like: cats, hyenas, aardwolves, civets, genets, and mongooses. The defining characteristics of the Canivora include a number of very specific morphologies of the skull, like how and where certain bones of the skull are fused to the rest of the skull. Among the Caniformia, the canids exhibit highly developed senses of smell, as evidenced by extensive sensory mucosa covering a series of intricate turbinal bones in the nasal cavity (as mentioned above, this is significantly less developed in primates), and their claws are most definitely non-retractable. Like most carnivorans, canids have specialized shearing blades, also called carnassials, on their lower first molars and upper fourth premolars, which are highly effective at slicing tough food objects like meat.

So, looking back on the descriptions of wookiee anatomy detailed at Wookieepedia (the definitive authority, after all), it appears that wookiees possess a mosaic of derived traits that align them with both primates and dogs. This is not surprising as both of these groups inspired Lucas’ imagination when he created Chewbacca. However, the preponderance of evidence suggests that wookiees are more similar in morphology to primates than they are to dogs. On the one hand/paw, they are arboreal, bipedal, and have stereoscopic vision – all primate characteristics. On the other hand/paw, they have a strong sense of smell, sharp pointed teeth, and claws instead of nails – all canid features. Yet, wookiee claws are retractable, which is a shared, derived trait present only in the carnivoran family Felidae (cats, Feliformia), and so it is not a canid trait. With the majority of evidence suggesting a closer link to primates than to canids, the wookiee retractable claw is clearly a derived trait, as they are not present in any canid common ancestors, at least as we understand mammalian evolution on Earth. Obviously Kashyyyk would have a completely different evolutionary history…but hey, who’s counting?

So then, operating within the context that wookiees are more primate-like than dog-like, it is now possible to examine whether or not Chebacca’s chuebakka would undergo the same process of ingestion and deglutition (swallowing) as mine. Spoiler alert: probably not!

Primate vocal anatomy and physiology have been described in greater detail in a previous entry at The 'Scope. But a brief review here is in order. In the neck, there are two passageways: one for air and one for food. The airway (yellow line/arrow) begins in the nose and mouth and ends after traveling through the pharynx by passing anteriorly to the laryngeal cartilages and into the trachea and lungs. The foodway (blue line/arrow) begins in the mouth and ends after also traveling through the pharynx by passing posteriorly to the esophagus and into the stomach. Notice that the two passageways cross each other. And then remember that it “could be bad” when the streams are crossed.

During a normal swallow, the hyoid bone and larynx move closer to the base of the skull (higher in the neck), while the epiglottis attached to the top of the thyroid cartilage (larynx) folds/flips backward to direct food toward the esophagus (digestive tract) rather than into larynx (respiratory tract).

In most living mammals, including non-human primates, the hyoid and larynx are positioned high in the neck (very close to the head) throughout postnatal development, as are their connections to most of their contiguous structures such as the tongue, pharyngeal constrictor muscles, and the supra- and infra-hyoid strap musculature that moves the hyolaryngeal complex during swallowing. This configuration enables the epiglottis (blue structure) to form a seal with the soft palate (pink structure), safeguarding against accidental aspiration of a bolus of food. This means that most mammals can swallow and breathe at the same time without choking. In humans, these structures are positioned similarly high in the neck at birth (diagram on left), but they descend gradually during postnatal development (diagram on right), reaching a unique position further down in the neck than in any other mammal (and perhaps wookiees?).

The caudal position of the human hyoid and larynx creates a supralaryngeal vocal tract, which forms two dynamically functioning and equal sized "tubes" – a horizontal tube extending from the posterior pharyngeal wall to the lips, and a vertical tube extending from the vocal folds to the soft palate. The ontogenetic descent of the hyoid and larynx in humans, along with the ability of the tongue to alter the cross-sectional area of both of these “tubes”, enables production of a wide range of vocalizations necessary for the evolution of quantal speech (which we know wookiees cannot produce). However, this adaptation comes at an expense to the swallowing function, as the lower position of the hyo-laryngeal complex in the neck prevents the epiglottis from forming a seal with the soft palate. Thus, the risk of aspirating a food bolus increases markedly in humans, making coordination between respiration and swallowing even more critical to survival.

So back to the original question… would Chewbacca have ingested and processed his Chuebakka in the same manner that I do? Well… it seems unlikely. It is well-documented (again on Wookieepedia) that wookiees speak a number of dialects that do not require vocal nuance, and due to their unique vocal apparatus, they are incapable of speaking Galactic Basic Standard, the most prevalent and most used language in the galaxy. If wookiees have a hyo-laryngeal complex that is situated high up in the neck near the base of the skull, morphology shared by all non-human primates, it would suggest that they are capable of swallowing and breathing simultaneously. This in turn would suggest that while I would have to wait to swallow chuebakka before alerting the world (or those immediately nearby) about how great it tastes, Chewbacca himself could swallow and breathe and presumably roar. At. The. Same. Time. And this makes me insanely jealous.

Contributed by:  Jason Organ, Ph.D.
Follow Jason on Twitter.

Laitman JT, & Reidenberg JS (1993). Specializations of the human upper respiratory and upper digestive systems as seen through comparative and developmental anatomy. Dysphagia, 8 (4), 318-25 PMID: 8269722

Laitman JT, & Reidenberg JS (1997). The human aerodigestive tract and gastroesophageal reflux: an evolutionary perspective. The American journal of medicine, 103 (5A) PMID: 9422615

Lieberman DE, McCarthy RC, Hiiemae KM, & Palmer JB (2001). Ontogeny of postnatal hyoid and larynx descent in humans. Archives of oral biology, 46 (2), 117-28 PMID: 11163319

Crompton AW, German RZ, & Thexton AJ (2008). Development of the movement of the epiglottis in infant and juvenile pigs. Zoology (Jena, Germany), 111 (5), 339-49 PMID: 18387794

The Friday Five

In this special edition of Friday Five, we’ve collected 5 of our best posts from 2014 that were inspired by the movies.

1. Jaws

Quick, Somebody Get The Name Of That Shark!

2. Planet of the Apes

Tough Talking Apes

3. The Incredible Hulk

Is It Really Possible For Someone To Turn Into THE HULK? Don’t Make Me Angry.

4. Star Wars

Midi-chlorians Gave Jedi Knights Their Power. Is There Something Like This On Earth?

5. Guardians of the Galaxy

I Am Groot! Plants Are More “Alive” Than We Think

Science quote of the week:

"Do or do not. There is no try” – Yoda, Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back

Contributed by:  Bill Sullivan

Follow Bill on Twitter: @wjsullivan

This Is Your TV On Drugs

Zyrtec used to have commercials that really bugged me.

Someone would sneeze, and everyone would stare at them

with disdainful looks. The message, take this medicine and

stop being a nuisance to polite society. That’s how drug

commercials work, any image to push you toward their drug.

If your prescription for an erectile dysfunction or diabetes drug has to come from your doctor, then why do the drug companies spend all that money on TV ads? 

Because they work! The United States is one of only two countries that allow direct to consumer advertising (DTCA) for prescription drugs. Can you guess the other? These days, there are 100 or so commercials for drugs on the TV every hour of every day.

The practice began in the States in 1985, but didn’t take off until 1997. In ’85, the FDA said it was OK to make claims and not discuss every side effect if the name of the specific drug was not mentioned in the ad. Seldane was the first success using this form of TV advertising. But the claims were so specific that when a person showed up at the doctor’s office asking about it, only one drug, Seldane, fit the description. Sales for Seldane went from a few million dollars to over 800 million dollars.   

In 1997 the FDA decided to let the commercials state the name of the drug without having to give every side effect associated with the drug. Only the major side effects had to be mentioned. And the gold rush was on. Prior to DTCA, the drug companies spent major money to push the doctors to prescribe a certain drug (and they still do), but with the TV commercials, they could actually pull a drug to success by having the patients go ask for it.

Using 2011 statistics, every dollar in DTCA advertising leads to at least four dollars in sales, which is why you’re forced to watch a couple in separate bathtubs on a hill smiling about their sex life. It just pays too well – drugs that use DTCA are prescribed 9x more often than those that are not advertised.

Some people argue that the ads are helpful – power to the people! They may bring more people to the doctor for routine screening and help the patient to see the doctor as a partner, not the boss. They encourage dialogue between the patient and the health provider, where it used to be a one way street – the doctor told you what to take and you either did or didn’t.

Abilify uses animation to sell their drug. The blue robe

represents depression. You take the drug and you don’t have

to wear the robe and it gets depressed. But the robe is always

there, looking creepy. It scares you into staying on their drug.

Some also profess that DTCA leads to a reduction in the stigma attached to certain illnesses, especially mental illness. However, this might not be so. A recent study suggests that DTCA’s for mental illness drugs actually increase the stigma associated with mental illness amongst the general population, while reducing the stigma only amongst the people that actually have mental illness. I’m not sure how helpful that actually is.

The idea that more information is better for the consumer is only true if the information they are getting is accurate and complete. This is where DTCA might have its biggest problem.

A 2014 study rated commercials based on how truthful they were. If they had no exaggerations or false claims, they were termed objectively true. Others were considered misleading, while the rest contained one or more falsehoods. Eighty-four ads for prescription drugs and 84 for over the counter (OTC) drugs were assessed.

The study found that 60% of prescription drug DTCA’s were misleading or false, and the OTC drug ads were worse, 80% contained exaggerations or falsehoods. The most common offender – erectile dysfunction drugs.

The misleading claims are not accidental; they always seem to skirt the bounds of legality. Everything is designed to promote good feelings toward the drug. For example, the study found that when Claritin was moved from prescription to OTC, the beneficial claims in the ads went up six fold.

Maybe the most obnoxious part of the ads is the list of possible side effects read at the end. Who decides what side effects have to be listed? The FDA says that the drug’s most important risks have to mentioned verbally, preferably in language the consumer can understand. Every side effect has to be easily available to the consumer. When the ads say, “Talk to your doctor,” that’s them fulfilling this obligation.

Women take Rogaine (minoxidil) for hair loss, not just men. There

is a whole industry and web community that has cropped up

about how to handle the unwanted hair growth associated with

taking the drug. Too bad that wasn’t there for the women taking

minoxidil for high blood pressure in the 1980's.

The major risks are side effects are those that represent the most severe reactions - death, physical debilitation, and cancer, NOT those that occur most often. True, possible death should be almost always be mentioned, but what about some lesser effects – some people might consider them major.

For example, a drug prescribed in the 1980’s and 90’s for high blood pressure is now marketed for something completely different. Do you think women that took minoxidil for their BP considered it major when they started growing more hair and began to take on the appearance of Kathy Bates in this season’s version of American Horror Story?

You’d think that the drug companies would hate having to use precious ad time to list side effects, but they actually like it. A 2014 study shows that when people are shown ads that don’t list side effects and ads that do, they have better feelings (trust) for the ads that list side effects.

Initially, the side effect lists have a negative effect, but with more viewings, people tend to tune out the side effects themselves. This leaves them only with the feeling of trust they have built up because the manufacturer was “honest” with them. Therefore, they trust those drugs more, but they don't really know why. But we know from above studies that the claims and statements aren’t always completely honest, so it isn't necessarily a justified feeling of trust.

Urban legend has it that the producers added a glimpse of the severed

arm in Star Wars in order to push their rating from G to PG.

But, no, they just asked for the PG rating. Come to think of it,

was there any Star Wars movie that didn’t include the severing

of an arm?

The FDA is thinking about combating this psychological effect by reducing the amount of information that has to be stated. They feel that too much side effect info might be confusing the consumer, leading they tune it out.

Interestingly, consider that the drug companies might not want to reduce the side effect information. They might continue with the long explanations even if not forced to. Did you know that Star Wars asked to have a PG rating so that it could draw a bigger audience that would assume there was more edgy content? Same concept here - they want to spend time on side effects to get the trust pay off.

BTW, the other country that allows DTCA’s for prescriptions drugs – New Zealand, of course!

Contributed by Mark E. Lasbury, MS, MSEd, PhD

As Many Exceptions As Rules

Faerber, A., & Kreling, D. (2013). Content Analysis of False and Misleading Claims in Television Advertising for Prescription and Nonprescription Drugs Journal of General Internal Medicine, 29 (1), 110-118 DOI: 10.1007/s11606-013-2604-0

Steinhart, Y., Carmon, Z., & Trope, Y. (2013). Warnings of Adverse Side Effects Can Backfire Over Time Psychological Science, 24 (9), 1842-1847 DOI: 10.1177/0956797613478948

Corrigan, P., Kosyluk, K., Konadu Fokuo, J., & Park, J. (2014). How Does Direct to Consumer Advertising Affect the Stigma of Mental Illness? Community Mental Health Journal, 50 (7), 792-799 DOI: 10.1007/s10597-014-9698-7

The Friday Five

Highlighting some of the coolest science news we’ve seen lately.

1. Sci-fi fans across the universe were “stunned” to learn that most space battles in the movies simply aren’t possible. Watch the video below to learn more about “The Physics of Space Battles”.

 

2. Everyone has probably heard by now that bats transmit Ebola, but these critters are vectors for many other diseases, too. Learn why in the video below. A recent review on bat flight and zoonotic viruses can be found here.

 

3. Here is an amazing video of a monster red leech devouring a giant worm. Real world Godzilla-like action!

 

4. Sphenopalatine ganglioneuralgia. What do you mean you don’t know what that is? Did you just eat some ice cream or something?

 

 5. This is a hell of a good video that reveals some psychological tricks to get others to do what you want. Watch it now, dammit! And let me know if the swearing trick worked!

Science quote of the week:

“The good thing about science is that it's true whether or not you believe in it.” –Neil deGrasse Tyson

Contributed by:  Bill Sullivan

Follow Bill on Twitter: @wjsullivan


O'Shea TJ, Cryan PM, Cunningham AA, Fooks AR, Hayman DT, Luis AD, Peel AJ, Plowright RK, & Wood JL (2014). Bat flight and zoonotic viruses. Emerging infectious diseases, 20 (5), 741-5 PMID: 24750692

Midi-chlorians gave Jedi knights their power. Is there something like this on Earth?

Star Wars Episode VII is happening, to the cautious delight of many longtime fans of the franchise. Replacing George Lucas at the helm is J.J. Abrams, who successfully rebooted the Star Trek franchise.

The cast for Star Wars Episode VII meeting with Yoda J.J. Abrams

Fans are waiting with bated breath to see whether he does a better job than Lucas did with the Star Wars prequels, which caused a great disturbance in the Force. While Jar Jar Binks soured the prequels for most people, one of the other sticking points was the Midi-chlorians. The what? Let's review. In the original series, the Force was described by Obi-Wan Kenobi as "an energy field created by all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, and binds the galaxy together." In episode I, Qui-Gon Jinn delivered the buzzkill message that the mysterious Force actually had a biological explanation. Instead of saying, “The Force is strong with this one”, one may as well say, “The Midi-chlorians are numerous in this one.”

According to Wookieepedia, “Midi-chlorians were intelligent microscopic life forms that lived symbiotically inside the cells of all living things. When present in sufficient numbers, they could allow their host to detect the pervasive energy field known as the Force.” A collective groan could be felt through movie theatres worldwide, as if millions of voices suddenly cried out in terror…

To a cell biologist, it sounds like Lucas drew his inspiration from the mitochondria, which are bacteria-like symbionts that work with our cells to provide energy. They even look like they might be cousins (see below). But that is where the similarities end. Unlike Midi-chlorians, mitochondria do not allow us to tap into energy fields…no matter how much we try to quiet our minds to hear our mitochondria speak to us.

Midi-chlorian (left) and mitochondria (right). Brothers from another mother?

 

But a strange and provocative paper by Alexander Panchin and colleagues proposes an unorthodox new idea called the “biomeme hypothesis”, which posits that the impulse behind some religious rituals could be driven by mind-altering parasites.

Let that sink in for a moment. Might your religion, or any number of other activities, be driven in part by parasites or symbionts in your brain? Before you dismiss the idea too quickly, think about the rabies virus. This super tiny virus is notorious for altering the behavior of dogs (and other animals, including people). Rabies can make even the most docile of dogs become uncharacteristically aggressive so that they bite and spread the virus. Rabies virus is just the tip of the iceberg; there is no shortage of parasites that are known to eerily alter their host’s behavior.

Rabies makes dogs aggressive to enhance viral transmission. The virus can get into a new host by causing its current host to bite others.

Central to Panchin’s hypothesis is the idea that certain religious rituals may facilitate the transmission and spread of parasites. The authors site that holy springs and holy water are replete with numerous microbes, including human pathogens. Sacred in Hinduism, the Ganges River probably contains the most, as an estimated 200 million liters of untreated human sewage is dumped into it every day. Bathing in this “purifying” water has led to the development of multiple diseases, such as cholera.  The Hindu “side-roll” ritual is associated with Cutaneous Larva Migrans, also known as “creeping eruption of the skin”, which is caused when the skin becomes infected with parasitic hookworm larvae. Performed in Muslim communities, ritual ablution, which involves irrigation of the sinuses, has been proposed to be a potential risk factor in contracting Naegleria fowleri (the infamous “brain-eating amoeba”) in Muslim communities. Outbreaks of respiratory infectious diseases and meningococcal disease are common amongst Hajj congregation in Mecca. The transmission of herpes has been reported in the Jewish circumcision method known as metzitzah, which involves the sucking of blood from the wound. Finally, many sacred relics are kissed or handled by many worshipers, offering additional routes for the potential transmission of multiple infectious agents.

While it is clearly demonstrable that certain religious rituals have inherent health risks, there currently is no direct evidence that any of the possible infections transmitted can influence the victim’s behavior (other than causing them to see a doctor). Until new data arrives, we are left with the conclusion that the rituals people engage in stem from cultural memes rather than biological. But one thing is clear:  you should use some hand sanitizer next time you dip your fingers in the holy water.

Contributed by:  Bill Sullivan
Follow Bill on Twitter

 

 

Panchin AY, Tuzhikov AI, & Panchin YV (2014). Midichlorians--the biomeme hypothesis: is there a microbial component to religious rituals? Biology direct, 9 (1) PMID: 24990702