language is a virus, and it's in good company

[rmd]

discover magazine article about research showing that there may be a link between various viral infections and schizophrenia.

Comments

[navrins]

Unimpressed. My intro to psych class pointed out that the risk of schizophrenia is increased when the mother has the flu in the later months of pregnancy. In fact, the professor pointed this out by mentioning the birth month effect and asking if anyone had any idea what might cause it, and I'm pretty sure someone came up with an approximation. So the fact that the article starts out by harping on how mysterious the birth-month effect is, when it isn't actually mysterious at all, doesn't make me expect the rest of it to be very accurate.

Now, if it said that we don't know why late-pregnancy flu increases the risk of schizophrenia, that'd be more interesting. If we know that answer, nobody's told me about it.

[keren-s.livejournal.com]

It is the idea that we all carry those retroviruses in our genes that gave me a "creeped out" reaction.

[muffyjo]

I find it fascinating. On a number of levels. Thank you for posting!