Episode Transcript: #965 - Robert Sapolsky
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Alright, well first of all thanks for doing this, I really appreciate it.
I found out about you several years back, I had heard something about toxoplasmosis,
am I saying it right?
Yeah.
Yeah, and I had seen a speech that you had given on it where you were talking about how
many people had been infected by this cat parasite.
I've had cats my whole life and I even had feral cats.
And I've always wondered, I should probably get tested and I'm worried about the result.
Perhaps not.
Well, it was just fascinating to me that literally, I mean, what is the number that you estimate
in an American's alone that might have been infected?
It's on the order of, I'm not sure with Americans, but worldwide it's something like 50% of humans is the best guess.
50% of humans worldwide.
Something on that scale.
For people who have never heard of this, would you mind explaining what this parasite is and how it affects rats and then cats and then people?
Okay, totally bizarre.
So it's this protozoan parasite, toxoplasma gondii, and it's got one of these weird parasitic lifestyles.