Earlier quoted context omitted.
To save someone else the time, the "ice-nine" referred to in this comment is fictional .
To be fair, "Cat's Cradle" is a famous work of science-fiction
For which generation?
Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada
101–110 of 311 posts
Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada
#102Earlier quoted context omitted.
Prions are incredible hard to destroy. To quote from Wikipedia: `Prion aggregates are stable, and this structural stability means that prions are resistant to denaturation by chemical and physical agents: they cannot be destroyed by ordinary disinfection or cooking.`
Sterrad sterilization machines, which use a hydrogen peroxide gas plasma, have been shown to be very effective against CJD (mad cow) and other prion diseases. However they are very expensive, and almost 20 years after their launch there are only 20k systems installed world wide.
A plasma of H2O2 sounds like the definition of a reactive environment…
Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada
#103Prion diseases terrify me. Especially having been in the UK eating beef at the time of the BSE outbreaks in the 1990s. I wonder if there have been studies on the scale of potential latent vCJD/Prion disease in the population?
I lived through it. I mean, it was scary, but the risks were low. I remember my landlord and his girlfriend at the time saying they were going to give up beef due to the risks. They said this whilst smoking cigarettes.
People are so good at ignoring large daily risks and freaking out about tiny unknown risks.
Just look how many people are scared of the covid19 vaccines, but take bigger risks in their morning commute. Actually if you just stick to the AstraZenica vaccine with the risk of blood clots - you take a bigger risk just getting out of bed in the morning, even if you never leave the house.
Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada
#104Prion diseases terrify me. Especially having been in the UK eating beef at the time of the BSE outbreaks in the 1990s. I wonder if there have been studies on the scale of potential latent vCJD/Prion disease in the population?
Many countries would not allow people who lived in the UK during the 80s and 90s to give blood. I ate so many burgers back then too. Our kids after they were born weren't allowed beef for years.
Yep I'm one of them. Lived in the UK in the early 80's as a child. Gave blood for the first time when I was in college in the 90's to the Red Cross here in the US, and they mailed me back saying to never give blood again but didn't specify a reason. It wasn't until a few years later that I found out why. And the fact I might have a prion disease lurking in my blood sometimes terrifies me.
Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada
#105Earlier quoted context omitted.
Bleach works as surface decontamination agent. They know it works for CWD, and I expect it works for others too.
> Bleach works as surface decontamination agent. They know it works for CWD, and I expect it works for others too. I remember reading that nothing but incineration would work in the context of Food-and-Mouth disease, but it seems modern techniques in brain surgery do use bleach. Interesting. Essentially, the only thing that works is disintegrating the prions. You can't wash them off, since you're simply washing them…
Foot
Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada
#106Earlier quoted context omitted.
I heard about Covid in January. It was still kind of localized, at the time, we didn't know much about it. Around mid-February I saw in the news that there was a somewhat big cluster in Italy and realized that everyone was screwed :-(
The first news about COVID were at the very end of december 2019 at least on mainstream media.
True, but between actually seeing the first news and figuring out: "Oh my God, this is going to be a global pandemic!", it took me a while. I think most people were in the same boat.
Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada
#107I do wonder if it’s possible that vaccines that are designed to make the body produce certain parts of the spike protein could lead to prion diseases accidentally. Are we sure of the proteins coded for and also that this coding can’t produce misfolded proteins? It’s pretty unlikely but also we don’t have long term testing of these proteins in the body. * please note I’ve had the first dose of Astra Zeneca and intend…
Seems like prions only "infect" the same kind of protein, so a misfolded spike protein that the vaccine might produce would only cause other spike proteins to misfold, and they almost surely don't occur naturally in human tissue so there should be no risk at all.
Excellent explanation I guess the short term effects of producing these proteins is pretty small, that’s good to know.
Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada
#108Prion diseases terrify me. Especially having been in the UK eating beef at the time of the BSE outbreaks in the 1990s. I wonder if there have been studies on the scale of potential latent vCJD/Prion disease in the population?
I skimmed through it but my understanding is that this is not a prion outbreak. At least the relevant tests come back negative. Did I get it wrong?
Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada
#109Prion diseases terrify me. Especially having been in the UK eating beef at the time of the BSE outbreaks in the 1990s. I wonder if there have been studies on the scale of potential latent vCJD/Prion disease in the population?
I lost someone very close to me to sporadic CJD. This was some time back, but the episode is one of the most troubling moments in my life because of the suffering it inflicts on the patient - the hallucinations with no way to communicate or to stop it.
I lost my mom this way in 2016 and nothing has made me wish for legal euthanasia more than witnessing that suffering and decline.
Re: Doctors investigate mystery brain disease in Canada
#110Prion diseases terrify me. Especially having been in the UK eating beef at the time of the BSE outbreaks in the 1990s. I wonder if there have been studies on the scale of potential latent vCJD/Prion disease in the population?
Prions cannot evolve, which is why they represent such a tiny space in diseases. They're really more a quirk of chemistry than biology.