France issues moratorium on prion research after fatal brain disease strikes

Post by newacct583 » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 4:00 PM UTC

marcodiego wrote: post #30

Scary. I think and airborne human transmissible prion disease that kill in a few years is the kind of event that can bring our society back to prehistoric living in just a few decades. Hope it never happens.

Post by detritus » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 4:02 PM UTC

peytoncasper wrote: post #191

detritus wrote: post #111

This coming so close after the announcement by DeepMind that they're releasing the data on hundreds of thousands of protein folding structures has me with a growing knot in my stomach. As generous and useful on a human-scale an announcement as that was, my first thought was how it could be abused. So too prion research. Who'd've thunk that muscle bulk could be so scary? (!)

I just wanted to add a comment about your muscle bulk comment. Protein in protein shakes is usually denatured or rather just a collection of amino acids. Proteins that are synthesized by the body have a structure to them and Prions are simply misfolded representations of those proteins. The process of destroying a Prion involves denaturing it by removing its structure. I don't believe that muscle tissue is anymore re…

Post by jjk166 » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 4:04 PM UTC

missedthecue wrote: post #187

zzbzq wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not a nitpick, it's just wrong. Bad things happening is a cost which is both negative and external. The use of the term "negative externality" works here.

Negative externality is an economic term which describes a specific market failure. A research lab leak (or nuclear meltdown, or whatever) is a rare accident, not a negative externality. It would be like me saying the theory of relativity just means a theory about how everything is relative. That's obviously wrong. You can't just break down academic terms into their separate words. It doesn't make sense.

Post by xvilka » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 4:08 PM UTC

FreeFull wrote: post #181

Cthulhu_ wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To prion diseases? Mainly in that they're not that common, more like a weird aberration than something that actively fights and adapts for its own survival like bacteria and viruses. I mean cancer is not contagious, but it still kills millions a year.

Strictly speaking, contagious cancer is a thing, but not in humans. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canine_transmissible_venereal_...

Post by dekhn » Wed, Jul 28, 2021, 4:10 PM UTC

varispeed wrote: post #175

dekhn wrote: post #56

Prions are weird. I was at UCSF during the time they went from a fringe theory to an established fact and a nobel prize. The professor who studied them (Prusiner) had to overcome tons of resistance and the experiments were heroic (often waiting months for mice to die). It's really funny that everybody resisted it until somebody mentioned that there was a plausible physical mechanism of refolding catalysis.

Is it because many researchers put their ego first over the science? It's so many times that they ridicule ideas, that often amounts to bullying and then they rarely even say sorry when it turns out they were wrong. Why won't academia flush out these types of people? The toxic atmosphere with no way of getting rid of bad apples is what put me off from studying.