Toxoplasma gondii

I am not a superstitious person, when a black cat crosses my path I do not cross my fingers, but I carefully avoid to walk under a stair.
Well, till today, this strange behavior of mine was without an answer, but now I know why.
My brain is probably infected by the Toxoplasma gondii.
This parasite, Toxoplasma gondii, has been transmitted indirectly from cats to roughly half the people on the planet, and it has been shown to affect human personalities in different ways, according to Kevin Lafferty.
He suggests that this clever cat parasite may alter human cultures on a massive scale.


"The parasite's eggs are shed in a cat's feces. A rat comes along, eats the feces, and becomes infected. The behavior of the rat undergoes a dramatic change, making the rat more adventuresome and more likely to hang out around cats.
The cat eats the rat, and the parasite completes its life cycle."
"This isn't about trying to freak cat owners out," he says. "Simply having a cat as a pet doesn't mean you're going to get infected, for sure."

Usual pets do not eat rats.
But what if they do?