Cat Scat Fever

Posted on by scott

The NY Times has an article on parasites today that has some weirdly familiar language.

Predators want to kill you and eat you right there on the veldt. Parasites, by contrast, want to keep you alive, the better to serve as a parasite paradise, a cozy haven where they can grow at their own pace, suckle on your moist, nourishing tissues, multiply their numbers and finally, one way or another, pass those numbers along.

It was all sounding very much like a certain book of mine, but then the writer got to a couple of parasite life cycles I was unfamiliar with.

Meet the thorny-headed worm, which makes pill bugs want to be eaten by birds. And the horsehair worm, which grows so big inside grasshoppers that it finally busts out of them, like when the bad guys rip off masks in Mission Impossible. At the end, there’s an interesting point about taxoplasma-positive humans and our sense of smell.

Anyway, give it a read.

Update: Turns out the entire Science Times is about evolution today. Lots of good articles, including one by Carl Zimmer, who wrote Parasite Rex, the book that Peeps was mostly based on.

36 thoughts on “Cat Scat Fever”

  2. As much as I loved Peeps (and pretty much everything you’ve ever published) reading about parasites gives me the heebie jeebies. Eek.

  3. this post made me … i cant even think of the word! i dont like reading about parasites. (i’ve never read peeps)

  4. Cool! Of course, I don’t have cats, so maybe that’s why I’m not having a major panic attack right now. The whole messing-with-the-host’s-brain thing is kinda fascinating, even though I would never want it to happen to me.

  5. All this parasite stuff is surprisingly interesting. 😀 I loved those bits in Peeps the most for some reason.

  6. cool i loved peeps (and all the other books) because mostly of the parisites on every other chapter and makeing people squeel when i tell them about it fun
    😀

  7. ewwwww i have a cat…and i cleaned its litter!!! what does that mean about me now?? 🙂 I LOVED peeps it was soo faawesome!!! but the bio lessons on parasites made me pretty squirmy… yuck.

  8. well i havent read peeps, but it’s sounds cool.and i’m not that in to parasotes.(cant wait for the first pg of EXTRAS)

  10. Well, that’s something interesting there. I wasn’t expecting an explaination about the existence of cat ladies. I just always thought they were crazy.

    But now I understand it’s just parasites.

  12. WOW summer relaxation has finally started and once things quite down i am extremely bored am I the only one who is bored in a smallish town well at least smaller than Seattle??

  13. Perfect. I’ve always wanted to enhance my rather pathetic conversational skills. Just gots to find me some toxoplasma gondii, and I’ll become chatty!! Yessss. I’ve got the cat lady part covered. Who knew that cleaning the litter box could improve your social life?

  16. I’ve never been squimish but a few things in peeps made me shiver. I loved both peeps and the last days and… well evreything i’ve ever read by you. What were some of you favorite authors growing up, or any books that inspired you to write? I’m a big reader so pile on the books and i’ll read ’em all from 2 pages to 2,ooo. I CAN NOT wait for extras!!!

  22. I read that article today! And I immediately thought of Peeps when I read it! What a coincidence. And it has to do with cats as well…toxoplasma is so cool! ANd fawsome!

  25. Peeps was the first Scott Westerfeld book I read!! I got so addicted I had to read Uglies and Midnighters. I was so excited when I heard about lost days I think I managed to convince my family I’m insane 😛

    Scott: I love reading your blog. My favorite part is the writing advice because I want to write novels when I’m grown up. Even though your posts are short (and few and far between… nudge nudge) they’re basically the most practical advice I’ve found on writing. A lot of guides are really awkward and stiff, or SUPER condescending. So… keep posting please! 🙂

  26. Haha oh my gosh! I know a cat lady! She used to be my english teacher and she has posters of cats all over her room and she she always talks about all the stray cats she takes into her home. She’s also very loopy, very friendly, and very chatty. OMG she’s infected with toxoplasma.

  28. thats pretty nasty! but cool in also 🙂 its so fun watching preps getting freaked wheni tell them about it

  30. YES, I finally got out of school today! Well, actually, tomorrow is officially the last day, but it’s only for an hour. Yeah, I know, we get out freakishly late here.

  31. my grandma was the crazy cat lady. she took in so0o0o0o many cats! she also fed the stray cats down at the YMCA!

  32. I think parasites are fascinating. Same with diseases, gruesome deaths, and torture devices. I know, I’m morbid.

  33. indigoeyes, where do you live?

    i got out may 25!

    next year they messed with the school year and we are starting at the end of august and we end june 5. i wish they would have left it the same because our spring break is a week earlier and my mom works in the payroll department at a college, so when we have spring break she is not off, but the week after that she has her spring break. so i don’t get to go any where durning spring break. i was talking to my sister and i said that we should start a petition of all the kids whose parents work at the college.

    oh and i got a sans disk!!!!

  34. :DDD
    that is awesome. Ever since I read peeps, I love biology. erm.. o.k., maybe just parasites and they effect things. It’s SOO interesting!
    And yet bilogy seems to be my worst subject.
    Ah well..

  36. Parasite Pig
    William Sleator

    If you haven’t read this book about a certain toxoplasma parasite, you should, but it is a sequel to his “interstellar pig” novel. I was quite shocked when i read that that parasite was involved since i had just finished reading “Peeps”. It made me feel happy inside.+)

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