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When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

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Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

#81

Post by developer2 »

maxerickson wrote: post #49
developer2 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> My family and I have had very frank discussion about death earlier than we would have otherwise. It would benefit any family to have that discussion, even if both parents are in their 20s and there has been no "scare scenario". Many people die every single day due to unpredictable events, with no warning whatsoever. Unfortunately, too many people have never really pondered their mortality, leading them to be incap…

The other side of it is that you can't really prepare yourself for the sudden loss of a close relationship. Having a life insurance policy sized to the needs of children is probably more beneficial than having a frank conversation with them.

>> you can't really prepare yourself for the sudden loss of a close relationship

I wholeheartedly agree. I didn't mean to sound like you can prepare yourself so far as to avoid any mourning when someone close to you kicks the bucket. I do believe that once you've been through 1-3 such rounds of death, an average person will finally "understand" and take future deaths with a grain of salt.

As an aside, I personally find it frustrating when a family decides to hold a closed-casket funeral. Actually seeing death up front and personal is the only way to truly become acquainted. The number of times I've heard "think of the children"... which is really just adults being in denial about their own eventual death, and perpetuating that fear into their children. Death is a natural eventuality for all; the younger someone can figure that out, the better off they'll be.

Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

#82

Post by derekp7 »

pound wrote: post #61
Razengan wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Basically if you've got a prion disease it's just a matter of time before they end you. Unless you had a mind backup and a second body ready. Which, I think, all medicine ultimately aims, should aim, for; Why bother learning how to repair the single same body over and over (which won't help in unexpected catastrophic failures aka fatal accidents anyway) when you can just grow and jump into a new one?

Do you consider your copy to be you?

Do you consider the "you" of today to be the same as the "you" of a year ago? Or is the current "you" just some bloke who has the same memories of the old "you"? Considering how much material in the body gets replaced over time.

Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

#83

Post by phkahler »

itchyouch wrote: post #13
quantumhobbit wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would a cure for prion diseases even look like? Are prions targeted by the immune system at all? That to me is what is scary about them.

From what I recall, they are seen as normal proteins by the immune system, thus not targeted. A simple illustration on prions was to imagine it like a busted cable end that would break the socket it plugs into, then the socket would break other cable ends plugged into it. This would occur until all sockets and cable ends were broken in the same way.

Decades ago, we had a PCMCIA card that did exactly that. A bent pin distorted the plastic in the socket and that led to more bent pins. Of course you had to try to force them in to propagate the problem and we never tested to see how many generations it could last. Once discovered we threw out all defective hardware which was just a few cards by then.

Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

#84

Post by Sophistifunk »

computerphage wrote: post #79
jcoffland wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prions are not alive and therefore do not need to compete for resources to further their existence.

If "not alive" => "doesn't need resources", then "needs resources" => "alive". That doesn't seem right to me.

That's... not how logic works.

Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

#85

Post by scythe »

quantumhobbit wrote: post #8
YCode wrote: post #3

I understand prion diseases are rare and it's more likely I'll die in a car accident or something, but the persistence of prions is just a horrifying concept. Highly resistant to heat, radiation, proteases, enzymes... Basically if you've got a prion disease it's just a matter of time before they end you.

What would a cure for prion diseases even look like? Are prions targeted by the immune system at all? That to me is what is scary about them.

There are molecules that cause prions to "refold" back into the healthy form. The problem is that so far every such known molecule is highly toxic, e.g. guanidinium chloride.

Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

#86

Post by Bjorkbat »

hdhzy wrote: post #35
touchofevil wrote: post #23

I did a bunch of research (googling) back in the late 90's or 2000s when the mad cow disease outbreak first happened mainly in England. I thought it was pretty terrifying and I wanted to know what the hell was going on. I read about Kuru all the way back then and the take away was that people shouldn't eat the brain and nervous tissue of other people or Kuru could result. But also it seemed that mad cow disease was o…

No-meat diet is not 100% prion-proof according to Wikipedia: > When researchers fed hamsters grass that grew on ground where a deer that died with chronic wasting disease (CWD) was buried, the hamsters became ill with CWD, suggesting that prions can bind to plants, which then take them up into the leaf and stem structure, where they can be eaten by herbivores, thus completing the cycle. It is thus possible that there…

True, but one might argue that it's at least a step in the right direction if you're really worried about transmissible prions.

Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

#87

Post by yblu »

XFrequentist wrote: post #73
cookiecaper wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cannibalism seriously threatens a species' survival. Risk of disease from eating same-species meat is a good way to stop it.

Nature cares not a whit about "species".

All things equal.

Specie A (with this disease) stop cannibalizing after seeing the outcome, better chance of survival.

Specie B (without this disease) eat themselves to the last person... Lower chance of survival as a specie.

Nature "cares" by generating lots of options, then let the fittest to survive. So while nature doesn't intend or plan for a specie to survive, the outcome is no different from if it did. I believe the OP means "care" in this sense.

Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

#88

Post by pvg »

computerphage wrote: post #79
jcoffland wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prions are not alive and therefore do not need to compete for resources to further their existence.

If "not alive" => "doesn't need resources", then "needs resources" => "alive". That doesn't seem right to me.

"All cats die. Socrates is dead. Therefore Socrates is a cat."

Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

#89

Post by jandrese »

itchyouch wrote: post #13
quantumhobbit wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What would a cure for prion diseases even look like? Are prions targeted by the immune system at all? That to me is what is scary about them.

From what I recall, they are seen as normal proteins by the immune system, thus not targeted. A simple illustration on prions was to imagine it like a busted cable end that would break the socket it plugs into, then the socket would break other cable ends plugged into it. This would occur until all sockets and cable ends were broken in the same way.

It's the Zip Drive click of death for your body.

Re: When People Ate People, a Strange Disease Emerged

#90

Post by DiThi »

computerphage wrote: post #79
jcoffland wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Prions are not alive and therefore do not need to compete for resources to further their existence.

If "not alive" => "doesn't need resources", then "needs resources" => "alive". That doesn't seem right to me.

That's a deductive fallacy. Alive things need resources, but things that need resources are not necessarily alive.
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