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A deadly fungus that can infect cats and people is spreading

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Re: A deadly fungus that can infect cats and people is spreading

#111

Post by kevlened »

kalenx wrote: post #96
busssard wrote: post #42

We will see more and more fungi infecting mammals in the coming years. Mammals and birds evolved higher body temperatures in part to protect from fungal infections. As most fungi are dying above 37°C. But a high temperature summer is a selection pressure on any mushroom trying to survive, and hence might evolve to survive 40° summers and thus also survive in our bodies. I really hope cordyceps is one of the last to d…

Not sure about that. Outside temperature above 37 were common in many highly populated areas, even before "high temperature summer" (e.g., India, Indonesia, most of Brazil, etc.). If there was an actual selection pressure, we would have seen its results by now.

We have already seen selection pressure results in Candida auris

https://journals.asm.org/doi/10.1128/mbio.01397-19 (2019)

https://radiolab.org/podcast/fungus-amungus (2020)

Re: A deadly fungus that can infect cats and people is spreading

#112

Post by pikminguy »

mschuster91 wrote: post #103
pikminguy wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A. I have cats that don't go anywhere special that the other cats don't go so that doesn't work unless I supervise. B. It's difficult to make sure they get the entire dose, again unless you supervise. And good luck getting a cat to finish food they've decided they are done with. C. I have cats that are picky enough to ignore any food that has a crushed pill in it. They can always tell. Yes even if I use smelly food.…

> Slowly dissolving in the stomach could be an important aspect of the delivery. Depends on the coating - some coatings only dissolve once they are out of the strongly acidic stomach. Slow dissolution is used in retarded medication, which may or may not be coincident with targeting post-stomach delivery.

Yeah I was trying to get the general point of "crushing the pill could interfere with effective delivery of the medicine" without getting too far into the weeds. Honestly it's usually fine and I do think mixing crushed pills with food is an important tool in a pet owners belt. It's just not the universal solution that was being implied.

Re: A deadly fungus that can infect cats and people is spreading

#113

Post by soiltype »

lenerdenator wrote: post #21
nemomarx wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been keeping pets as a species for considerably longer than we've had cities. It's basically an ingrained part of how we react to animals now.

Beyond that, longer than we've had the written word. Domestication of animals might be the single greatest achievement of humans.

Aren't cities older than writing?

Re: A deadly fungus that can infect cats and people is spreading

#115

Post by soiltype »

pizzafeelsright wrote: post #110
shahsjsjjsz wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not having cats is an option that is not seriously considered. Dogs are even worse. Make them shit in your own backyard please. If you are a city dweller please do not keep “pets”, it’s bloody ridiculous, thank you.

Keeping an animal that defecates indoors and allowing it contact with food prep area is obscene.

Obscene is the right word because it's quite manageable in health terms, it just feels bad to you.

Re: A deadly fungus that can infect cats and people is spreading

#116

Post by soiltype »

elzbardico wrote: post #61
rob74 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not the OP, and this is probably not what they were thinking of, but from the point of view of the planet's ecosystem, eliminating the humans that keep introducing species where they don't belong (or at least drastically reducing their population) would be the most effective measure.

There's no such thing as introducing species where they don't belong. Ecosystem are dynamic, several other animals serve as vectors for transporting species from a place to another. There's no such thing as a long term static equilibria where godess gaia looks like a Jehova's witnesses book illustration. This is an incredibly cultish and misanthropic position.

This is absurd. Without human intervention, catastrophic boundary crossing by organisms is slow and rare. With humans, it happens at unsustainable scale. We all know what it looks like for an invasive species to dominate an ecosystem and crowd out existing niches, and that's what it means to introduce a species where it doesn't belong. Just because it can also happen without humans around doesn't mean what we're doing is no big deal.

Re: A deadly fungus that can infect cats and people is spreading

#117

Post by edonhametsu »

moinism wrote: post #114

[flagged]

What does this add to the conversation? It's hardly a summary, and not to be too judgy but seems like a third-grader's PowerPoint - just showing images that reflect exactly what it's telling me (both in audio and in text).

Re: A deadly fungus that can infect cats and people is spreading

#118

Post by dguest »

voakbasda wrote: post #81
Guthwine wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Genuinely curious - are sheep kept for their wool also slaves in your opinion?

There is a ballot measure this Fall in Oregon that would ban pet and livestock ownership in the state. The backers got over 100,000 people to sign the petition. There are people that either simply do not understand the natural order that the majority of humans want to eat meat and keep pets, or they do not care about other people enough to respect their lifestyle choices.

Citation:

- https://ballotpedia.org/Oregon_Criminalize_Hunting,_Fishing,...

- https://www.yesonip28.org/

Re: A deadly fungus that can infect cats and people is spreading

#119

Post by esseph »

doodlebugging wrote: post #91
esseph wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think the fraction of people who have a clear enough mental idea of the dimensions or volume of an Olympic-sized swimming pool is pretty small relative to the articles readership At least in the US, "Olympic sized swimming pool" is as common a unit of measure as a US football field - very commonly used.

I agree. It is common to see those used as area and volume examples. I think it is far less common for the audience to have a clear mental picture of the two terms though. It's easier for a football field to serve as a reference because more people have exposure to football fields. It is more difficult for an Olympic sized swimming pool to serve as a reference because there are fewer people who have seen one in perso…

> I think it is a bit comical to use swimming pools as a volumetric reference when most people's experience with swimming pools has been in a back yard setting or on visits to community pools, which may be any convenient size.

A lot of US high schools and US colleges have Olympic pools.

Re: A deadly fungus that can infect cats and people is spreading

#120

Post by nosioptar »

jsiepkes wrote: post #43
MisterTea wrote: post #15

> “I’m convinced that half of the human cases that come from cats are people who are trying to stuff pills down their cat’s throats to treat the sporotrichosis,” Do yourself a favor, crush the pill and put it in food. Problem solved. Difficult with multiple cats but I had two and one needed medication so I put this little guys on a window sill he loved to perch on which the other cat didn't care to reach.

Its not always that easy. For example cerenia tastes very bitter for a cat. My cat will start drooling almost uncontrollably if he tastes it. He has a kidney condition and needs it for the rest of his life. I've tried crushing it, but he will then just ignore the food because of the bitter taste of the pill. Putting it in something like easy-pill will work a couple of times. Until he realizes the disgusting taste he…

A piller makes getting pills down them 1,000 times easier.

https://www.chewy.com/vetone-pet-piller-dogs-cats/dp/204481

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