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A deadly fungus that can infect cats and people is spreading

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51–60 of 165 posts

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

#51
Please note that this is an extremely rare disease even in Brazil, where it came from. Asked my vet, and two cousins who also are vets, and all of them knew of the disease from scientific literature and government health bulletins, but only one of them had treated two actual cases, when he lived in northeastern region: two strays.

Brasil must have something like between 40 and 50 million cats (including strays). An infectious disease that killed thousands (what the article means? 1000, 2000? 10000?) while not ignorable, it is not exactly highly prevalent.

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

#52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wouldn’t we have less insects because of increased bird, rodent and spider growth?

Less insecticide is probably the key thing. Driving in the eighties with windscreens full of insects, and now hardly anything, and a lot less of the things that lived on them.

Sometimes I wonder about that. The measure is number of insect impacts on windshields but is the car the same?

If we use a more modern care would the increased aerodynamics prevent impacts as instead of punching through the air you are cutting through it?

Have never read the full experimental setup and assumptions... I do know that I have less dead bug then when I was a kid...

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

#53
post #40

We need lock downs, a wall, 100% containment. Full vaccine mobilization. Starship must be expedited. A world without cats is not a world at all.

Pets are slaves. Stop trying to own emotions.

Dogs have owners, cats have staff.

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

#54
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.

You first? Also, what is that babble about "the planet's ecosystem" being better off by eliminating humans? If you really want to see it as a whole - the Gaia hypothesis - then humans are part of it just like flies and ticks and mosquitos and birds and whales. All play a role, some spread diseases to others while they feed yet again others. Removing humans from the equation is just like Mao's decision to get rid of t…

We are in the midst of a great extinction event. It’s the only extinction event caused by one species. We are quite bad for the planet’s ecosystem and things like factory farming of cows and pigs cause great suffering. Having far fewer humans on the planet would be a great benefit to other species and to humanity.

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

#56
post #40

We need lock downs, a wall, 100% containment. Full vaccine mobilization. Starship must be expedited. A world without cats is not a world at all.

Pets are slaves. Stop trying to own emotions.

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

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

#57

Can survive weeks, months and even years?? That’s a little horrifying.

My cat's got a different kind of fungus, not sporotrichosis, but one that gives her sort of a "clown nose". We've been trying to treat it for years now and it always comes back. Every time the treatment takes 4-6 months with itraconazol.

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

#58
post #28

We need lock downs, a wall, 100% containment. Full vaccine mobilization. Starship must be expedited. A world without cats is not a world at all.

A world with cats is a world with billions of dead birds and small mammals. Without them we will have even more insects. So this time cats won’t protect us from diseases by killing the carrier, these time they help the carriers

Or killing them in the US will allow bird populations to recover, leading to birds killing more insects. Cats are not native to the Americas.

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

#59

Everything is spreading. We're a large interconnected world, and we'll inherit everyone's problems eventually. There are better alternatives, but it's not something people will seriously consider.

Do you live in the American continent? Look at the skin tone of most people you find in the streets. Go to a library and try to find out what was the average skin tone in your region 600 years ago. Compare both.

Thinks have been spreading for quite a while. Migratory species are older than ourselves. Jet stream can carry spores over oceans. World commerce is older than you think. Wars and migratory movements has always been a part of our civilization.

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

#60
post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is also a TV adaptation that came out on Netflix a few years ago.

I guess GP is hinting that referring to TLoS as a TV series is a bit similar to, say, referring to LotR as a movie series (when discussing the basic premise shared by the original and the adaptation).

Reminds me of this scene: https://clip.cafe/airheads-1994/uh-67-copies-of-moby-dick/?s...
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