Last Call: If Only We Had This Litter-Box Parasite, We'd Be So Successful Right Now

You know how it is: You're scrolling through Twitter wondering why people aren't more outraged about the #TrumpTapes that CNN dropped yesterday, when you come across the headline that inspires the old, "Is this an Onion headline?" And you work at The Onion, so you realize no, it isn't.

A mind-controlling parasite found in cat feces may give people the courage they need to become entrepreneurs, researchers reported. https://t.co/ZL5WgbxzW4

— NBC News (@NBCNews) July 25, 2018

Toxoplasmosis, which is found in cat droppings as well as undercooked meat, can affect the brain, apparently leading to an increase in risk-taking behaviors as our fear factor lessens. (Mice infected by toxoplasmosis are less afraid of cats, for example.) And few things, it turns out, are as risk-taking as opening your own business. So researchers examined 1,500 students, says NBC News, and the students who tested positive as infected with toxoplasmosis "were 1.4 times more likely to be business majors and 1.7 percent more likely to have an emphasis in 'management and entrepreneurship,'" the team found. A quick Google search tells me that Albert Einstein, Salvador Dali, and Jack Kerouac all had cats—as did Ernest Hemingway, of course—so maybe the toxoplasmosis leads to creative (and scientific) courage as well. Maybe I have to get a cat now, is what I'm saying. [Gwen Ihnat]

The latest in my summer string of Amazon impulse buys was a set of six refillable ice pop molds. This week, I made highly delicious blood orange-lemonade-basil pops, which has completely exhausted my repository of creative citrus-based flavor ideas. I have a surplus of backyard herbs at the moment, so if anyone has an especially delicious suggestion that involves mint, basil, etc., I'm all ears. [Kate Bernot]