How could one not read about toxoplasmosis? But although Flegr’s reports make good click-bait headlines, attempts to replicate them are pretty patchy, especially when you correct for p-hacking.
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The idea that nature was in any way beneficient and that there was a Divine Plan was pretty much on the way out in progressive English circles by the 1840s. It had been a big shock to realise from the fossil record that many species must have gone extinct because Christian dogma supposed that all species had been created from the beginning and the only ones missing were those who didn’t make it onto the Ark. Charles Darwin wasn’t actually ahead of his time, he collected and marshalled the evidence very well and picked up his first ideas from his grandfather.
From scarped cliff or quarried stone
She [nature] cries, a thousand types are gone,
I care for nothing, all shall go. [Tennyson, around 1844 I think]
I mention this because, despite evidence like that in this post, fundie Christians in the 21st century still lag educated early Victorians in their understanding of the world, which is concerning.
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Okay, I think I speak for most of us here when I say:
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!
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If it’s any consolation, the praying mantis probably ingested the nematomorph by eating its original host.
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Watching a mantis chow down on it’s live and struggling prey is not for the faint of heart too.
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I mentioned this in another thread - but I’ll tell it again.
I once found a shiny soldier beetle with a bright iridescence green shell. I put him in a jar to look at him. He was going crazy, just constantly running.
Turns out, I found a hole in the back of the abdomen and he was completely hollow in there! Mother nature is freaking horrible1
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Last time I saw that it was a spider. And I did not need to see it then , either.
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Sweet Jesus. I just was trying to google what I saw all those years ago, and I learned about this. The female is literally a bag of eggs and oviduct - no mouth, no eyes, no legs, and lives in the folds of the exoskeleton plates of other insects. The male lives like 6 days, fertilizes another female, who babies basically erupt from her body.
https://www.wired.com/2015/01/absurd-creature-of-the-week-strepsiptera/
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But… what was living inside the hairworm?
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Nature is so beautiful, I mean creepy.
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" And he said unto them, Go. And when they were come out, they went into the herd of swine: and, behold, the whole herd of swine ran violently down a steep place into the sea, and perished in the waters."
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shut up shut up shut up shut up shut up
lalalala I can’t hear you 
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Once, as a kid, I caught a praying mantis and put it in my bug box. Showed it around a bit, then the 'rents told me it was time to set it free.
(We’d had a bit of an incident when some fireflies didn’t last the night - there were holes but they didn’t last the night anyways… and thus my dreams of a biological night light were dashed)
Anyways, my dad pointed out they’re very useful and said I should set it free to be safe.
So I go out, stick my hand in, and the mantis promptly bites me, drawing blood. I freak out, and the mantis flies away.
Anyways, I’m glad that when I took my evening bath, a giant worm didn’t crawl out of my ass leaving me to die.
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No problem gutting fish huh? The guts are the least of your problems, sorry to say…
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Yup, I’m already familiar with Anisakis worms that show up in the local fish. I tried warning a well known local kayak guide and Youtuber who videoed himself eating his catch as sushi off the back of his truck, and he was belligerently dismissive.
Fascinating part of that one is it’s life cycle involves marine mammals, so the return of seals to the northeast US has brought back a parasite unknown for decades. Most of my catch gets frozen so the risk is relatively low. I won’t make ceviche with unfrozen fish.
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There’s a good list of common (California) marine fish parasites here: https://www.wildlife.ca.gov/Conservation/Marine/Parasites
Good stuff to know for those of us who enjoy eating what we catch…
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#IntelligentDesign 
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