This photo deeply disgusts some people, & scientists are trying to understand why

[C C]

http://www.iflscience.com/brain/this-pho...stand-why/

EXCERPT: Clustered holes, bumps, and similar patterns disgust some people. [...] These clusters of holes are common in nature. They range from the creepy, like the back of a female surinam toad, to more mundane sights like honeycomb or clusters of soap bubbles. [...] Some 15%-17% of people may experience this disgust, called trypophobia. Trypophobia is not considered a true phobia, though it's poorly understood. Many researchers agree trypophobia has instinctive roots in the human brain, but disagree about its possible ties to fears from our evolutionary past. [...] when one of the self-reported trypophobics they interviewed mentioned a fear of the pattern on a blue-ringed octopus [...researchers had a...] a potential evolutionary reason for this fear of weirdly clustered holes — an association with a potentially poisonous or dangerous animal...

MORE: http://www.iflscience.com/brain/this-pho...stand-why/

[Magical Realist]

I'm in the clear. No disgust for me. Just an old seed pod.

[Carol]

Reading that the reaction could be an inherited memory of life-threatening creatures lead me to wonder about the plagues. Like our flesh breaking open and something crawling or oozing out of it is pretty repulsive.

https://www.google.com/search?q=picture+...4YFMKxfiEM:

[confused2]

I'm not keen on it. As Carol suggests - looks a bit plaguey

[Yazata]

There's a definite "Eeww" factor. It's just a subtle feeling, nothing like a phobia. Even calling it 'disgust' probably exaggerates it.

It's interesting. The photo has a definite biological appearance. I wonder if that "Eeww" factor is innate and inherited from our ancestors.

Honeycombs don't elicit it. Neither do soap bubbles.

But the thing in the photo just looks... unwholesome. Like fungus perhaps, growing on something rotten. Or where something hatched. It makes me wonder what nasty things are crawling around. If I encountered something like that out in the woods, I'd probably have a mild feeling that I want to move away from it.

Of course that would be contradicted by the biological curiosity in me that would want to look at it more closely to determine what it is.

[Zinjanthropos]

Can't understand why this would disgust anyone. It looks like the old kids bean bag toss or carnival game and there should be point values for each cavity.