5 ms·

Prions are scary, but the fact that prions have presumably existed for just as long as life has existed on Earth, there must be something that keeps prions from

Prions are scary, but the fact that prions have presumably existed for just as long as life has existed on Earth, there must be something that keeps prions from replicating out of control and causing mass death and extinctions.

jhgb 5y ago
Let's hope that that "something" wasn't smaller populations.
- csharptwdec19 5y ago
  It does make one wonder about oral traditions of 'cursed' lands...
- learc83 5y ago
  There were smaller populations of humans, but not smaller populations of mammals in general.
  - maxerickson 5y ago
    With our skill at making meat, I wonder how true that is.
    - NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
      Bison are much better at making meat than we ever were, before we all but wiped them out. Google piles of bison skulls for a peek.
      - maxerickson 5y ago
        I think the comparison is hard more than it is obvious. There's an awful lot of humans, pets and livestock.
        learc83 5y ago
        A quick google search shows around 5 billion goats, cows, pigs, and sheep, 1.5 billion cats and dogs, and 8 billion humans. Compared to an estimated 130 billion wild mammals. That’s without the vast herds of herbivores that used to roam the plains of the world.
- heavyset_go 5y ago
  Something like 100 billion people have died in the last 50k years, and it doesn't really seem like prions from their corpses have been a problem.
ed_balls 5y ago
It could be, because cultures that were using human bodies, instead of burning or burying them, went extinct. > Prehistory of endocannibalism controversy Whether or not endocannibalism was commonplace through much of human prehistory remains controversial. A team led by Michael Alpers, a lifelong investigator of kuru,[14] found genes that protect against similar prion diseases were widespread, suggesting that such endocannibalism could have once been common around the world.[15][16] A genetic study with a range of authors published by the University College London in 2009 declared evidence of a "powerful episode" of natural selection in recent humans. This evidence is found in the 127V polymorphism, a mutation which protects against the kuru disease. In simpler terms, it would appear the kuru disease has affected all humans to the extent we have a specialised immune response to it.[17] However, a study drawing from hundreds of resources in 2013 claims further that 127V derives from an ancient and wide spread cannibalistic practice, not related to kuru specifically, but "kuru-like epidemics" which appeared around the time of the extinction of the neanderthals who co-existed with humans. This allows the suggestion that cannibalistic practises may have caused diseases which killed the neanderthals, but not the humans because of the 127V resistance gene.[18] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocannibalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocannibalism >The earliest known reference to a requirement for a six-foot burial occurred in 1665 during the Great Plague of London. John Lawrence, the Lord Mayor of London,[13] ordered that the bodies of plague victims "...shall be at least six foot deep." The city officials apparently believed this would inhibit the spread of the disease, not realising that the true vector was fleas living on rats in the streets.
ClumsyPilot 5y ago
"there must be something that keeps prions from replicating out of control" Do you feel like we should roll the dice? If we roll a 6, it could be worse that the Plague and Covid combined

jhgb 5y ago

Let's hope that that "something" wasn't smaller populations.

csharptwdec19 5y ago
It does make one wonder about oral traditions of 'cursed' lands...
learc83 5y ago
There were smaller populations of humans, but not smaller populations of mammals in general.
- maxerickson 5y ago
  With our skill at making meat, I wonder how true that is.
  - NaturalPhallacy 5y ago
    Bison are much better at making meat than we ever were, before we all but wiped them out. Google piles of bison skulls for a peek.
    - maxerickson 5y ago
      I think the comparison is hard more than it is obvious. There's an awful lot of humans, pets and livestock.
      - learc83 5y ago
        A quick google search shows around 5 billion goats, cows, pigs, and sheep, 1.5 billion cats and dogs, and 8 billion humans. Compared to an estimated 130 billion wild mammals. That’s without the vast herds of herbivores that used to roam the plains of the world.
heavyset_go 5y ago
Something like 100 billion people have died in the last 50k years, and it doesn't really seem like prions from their corpses have been a problem.

ed_balls 5y ago

It could be, because cultures that were using human bodies, instead of burning or burying them, went extinct. > Prehistory of endocannibalism controversy Whether or not endocannibalism was commonplace through much of human prehistory remains controversial. A team led by Michael Alpers, a lifelong investigator of kuru,[14] found genes that protect against similar prion diseases were widespread, suggesting that such endocannibalism could have once been common around the world.[15][16] A genetic study with a range of authors published by the University College London in 2009 declared evidence of a "powerful episode" of natural selection in recent humans. This evidence is found in the 127V polymorphism, a mutation which protects against the kuru disease. In simpler terms, it would appear the kuru disease has affected all humans to the extent we have a specialised immune response to it.[17] However, a study drawing from hundreds of resources in 2013 claims further that 127V derives from an ancient and wide spread cannibalistic practice, not related to kuru specifically, but "kuru-like epidemics" which appeared around the time of the extinction of the neanderthals who co-existed with humans. This allows the suggestion that cannibalistic practises may have caused diseases which killed the neanderthals, but not the humans because of the 127V resistance gene.[18] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocannibalism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endocannibalism >The earliest known reference to a requirement for a six-foot burial occurred in 1665 during the Great Plague of London. John Lawrence, the Lord Mayor of London,[13] ordered that the bodies of plague victims "...shall be at least six foot deep." The city officials apparently believed this would inhibit the spread of the disease, not realising that the true vector was fleas living on rats in the streets.

ClumsyPilot 5y ago

"there must be something that keeps prions from replicating out of control" Do you feel like we should roll the dice? If we roll a 6, it could be worse that the Plague and Covid combined