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Prions, Nearly Indestructible and Universally Lethal, Seed the Eyes of Victims

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Re: Prions, Nearly Indestructible and Universally Lethal, Seed the Eyes of Victims

#31

Post by aqme28 »

OldFatCactus wrote: post #24

I had project in college on Prions. Some interesting things I remember: * Kuru (laughing disease) was transmitted from cannibalism. Women and children of the tribe were more likely to contract it because they were more often given the less palatable parts of the bodies, which included brains * Some countries do not trust American cattle because our standards for Prion screening are too low * Kentucky has issues with…

Why are prion diseases typically brain diseases?

Or is that the only organ where they manifest in symptoms?

Re: Prions, Nearly Indestructible and Universally Lethal, Seed the Eyes of Victims

#33

Post by whiddershins »

sandworm101 wrote: post #27
fallingknife wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Infectious disease is one area where fear of the unknown is rational. We don't just need to defend against existing diseases, but also diseases yet to emerge. Just because CJD is rare doesn't mean that the next prion disease will be, so it would make sense to take measures to prevent transmission of prions now.

It is also an are where our innate fears, fears that modern society tells us are unacceptable, might have a place. There is a deep-seated fear of diseased people that once kept us healthy. Modern science has given us an understanding of disease that means there is often no need to physically separate paints where we know the disease is not easily transmitted. The shunning of an aids victim, or a child with cancer, is…

Nitpick note:

The phrase is actually “deep seated.”

Re: Prions, Nearly Indestructible and Universally Lethal, Seed the Eyes of Victims

#34

Post by cobbzilla »

aqme28 wrote: post #31
OldFatCactus wrote: post #24

I had project in college on Prions. Some interesting things I remember: * Kuru (laughing disease) was transmitted from cannibalism. Women and children of the tribe were more likely to contract it because they were more often given the less palatable parts of the bodies, which included brains * Some countries do not trust American cattle because our standards for Prion screening are too low * Kentucky has issues with…

Why are prion diseases typically brain diseases? Or is that the only organ where they manifest in symptoms?

iirc they reproduce most rapidly in nervous tissue. thus brains have the highest concentration of them.

Re: Prions, Nearly Indestructible and Universally Lethal, Seed the Eyes of Victims

#35

Post by SEJeff »

OldFatCactus wrote: post #24

I had project in college on Prions. Some interesting things I remember: * Kuru (laughing disease) was transmitted from cannibalism. Women and children of the tribe were more likely to contract it because they were more often given the less palatable parts of the bodies, which included brains * Some countries do not trust American cattle because our standards for Prion screening are too low * Kentucky has issues with…

Born and raised in Kentucky (Lexington). I've never heard of squirrel brains as a dish. That's an interesting tidbit. Would it be fair to guess that the parts of KY this is popular are on the south eastern part of the state on the border with West Virginia? All of the normal rules of everything are different when you're in Appalachia.

Re: Prions, Nearly Indestructible and Universally Lethal, Seed the Eyes of Victims

#37

Post by sandworm101 »

whiddershins wrote: post #33
sandworm101 wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is also an are where our innate fears, fears that modern society tells us are unacceptable, might have a place. There is a deep-seated fear of diseased people that once kept us healthy. Modern science has given us an understanding of disease that means there is often no need to physically separate paints where we know the disease is not easily transmitted. The shunning of an aids victim, or a child with cancer, is…

Nitpick note: The phrase is actually “deep seated.”

You are correct. I've heard it both ways and ascribed slightly different meanings, but deep-seated was what I meant.

Re: Prions, Nearly Indestructible and Universally Lethal, Seed the Eyes of Victims

#38

Post by ryanmercer »

hannasanarion wrote: post #28
ryanmercer wrote: post #14

Prions are one of the things that makes me go, hey wait maybe we do live in a simulation. They're basically corrupted code (which we've yet to figure out how they get that way in the first place) that corrupts other code... what is that?!?! Reminds me a lot of the WoW 'corrupted blood incident'. I understand how something like bacteria or a virus enters a host and replicates, but an anomalous protein corrupting other…

But prions aren't code. DNA is code. Proteins are factory robots, and the prion protein is a factory robot involved in the process of making factory robots. Neural proteins are very complicated, so they need other proteins to help them fold properly. One of these protein-folding-proteins (PRNP) can be mis-folded in such a way that it mis-folds other proteins in the same way that it is mis-folded itself. When most fac…

>But prions aren't code.

It was an analogy and reading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proteopathy#Seeded_induction it sounds very much like they act like a piece of code corrupting another piece of code

>Some proteins can be induced to form abnormal assemblies by exposure to the same (or similar) protein that has folded into a disease-causing conformation, a process called 'seeding' or 'permissive templating'

That sounds a lot like many computer viruses

>A computer virus is a type of malicious software that, when executed, replicates itself by modifying other computer programs and inserting its own code

Re: Prions, Nearly Indestructible and Universally Lethal, Seed the Eyes of Victims

#39

Post by Cyph0n »

OldFatCactus wrote: post #24

I had project in college on Prions. Some interesting things I remember: * Kuru (laughing disease) was transmitted from cannibalism. Women and children of the tribe were more likely to contract it because they were more often given the less palatable parts of the bodies, which included brains * Some countries do not trust American cattle because our standards for Prion screening are too low * Kentucky has issues with…

Cooked goat and cow heads are a delicacy in some regions of Tunisia. Obviously, this includes the brain. I now wonder if Prions have ever been an issue in Tunisia...

Re: Prions, Nearly Indestructible and Universally Lethal, Seed the Eyes of Victims

#40

Post by OldFatCactus »

SEJeff wrote: post #35
OldFatCactus wrote: post #24

I had project in college on Prions. Some interesting things I remember: * Kuru (laughing disease) was transmitted from cannibalism. Women and children of the tribe were more likely to contract it because they were more often given the less palatable parts of the bodies, which included brains * Some countries do not trust American cattle because our standards for Prion screening are too low * Kentucky has issues with…

Born and raised in Kentucky (Lexington). I've never heard of squirrel brains as a dish. That's an interesting tidbit. Would it be fair to guess that the parts of KY this is popular are on the south eastern part of the state on the border with West Virginia? All of the normal rules of everything are different when you're in Appalachia.

Here's some info from a quick google: http://www.mad-cow.org/~tom/victim23.html

Looks like the dish is called Burgoo

> The center of the burgoo universe is Owensboro, Kentucky

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