Recently Corona Virus is quite the talk everywhere else. I'm just wondering about several things, so any of you who's good at biology especially virus please enlighten me about this. I wonder why a virus with a certain kind of similar way to spread like Corona Virus (through physical contact, air from coughing, feces, etc) all of a sudden now appear despite the fact that it's so easy to spread, I mean, why now of all times? Why not 100 years ago? Or thousand years ago? I know in corona case, I heard it's from animal to human (if I remember correctly, someone ate a bat soup or something like that), and somehow I know the fact that virus could only replicate themselves by infecting a host cell, but how did that animal got that virus in the first place anyway? Thx in advance for answering, I wanna sleep
Not who you're looking for, but believe it has something to do with mutations; as the virus spreads from one host to another, it's introduced to different sorts of stimuli, or something along that line, that causes it to mutate, changing it. For example, your ancestors started to live in a cave for whatever reason; since they can't use their sight, over generations they slowly lose it, to make way for other senses that are being used., -- Just speed this up, because virus replicate continuously.
Mutation. These viruses have constant mutations going on, which is why you also get seasonal flu vaccines which work only for this particular seasonal strain. Sometimes the dice roll tiple 6, and you get jackpot - Spanish flu, SARSor something similar. It's just a random combination that makes them extra lethal.
Most virus are species specific, so a virus that infect pigs will normally only affect pigs and the pig's immune system is prepared to deal with it so it can infect but will have milder symptoms. Niw if the virus has a benefical mutation that allow it to infect a new type of host, as the new host species doesn't have a trained immune system to deal with that particular virus then it will propragate much faster than in the original host species and will have harsher symptoms
there are three major factors on virus appearance, the first and most major is mutation (In example the Flu or even just a cold the most known mutates). The second is habitat, some viruses only "live" in certain small areas or climates which had been hard to get in to in the past. The last is survival, a lot of viruses have a short life spans and burn out quickly in a population which takes us back to #1 mutation which allows these viruses to last longer. That is leaving out Human intervention (ie. done on purpose or by mistake) which really can mess with things...
I heard it got passed around at a communal banquet in Wuhan were the organizers didn't care about the virus.
Anyone got some good Four Horsemen art? I like the stuff that came out of the fatalistic period in Europe during the black plauge. For example, this A very good piece don't you think? It probably wasn't made in medevil Europe, but ya know what I mean.
Just wait for the internet to do its thing. The internet takes what mother nature has and makes it cute. Exhibit A... Meet Ebola-Chan, the internet's idea of waifu material.
I like the one with the old men in it. It's a comedic take on a dark subject that at the same time is pretty representative of what the Horsemen would likely look like.
After infecting the host, a virus will enter the cells of the host and will then incorporate the DNA of the host into its own RNA. Thus, this mutation is what causes the first infection. Viruses will keep transferring from different hosts to others. But they can never survive outside a host, which might be the reason why the initial contact was through consumption. As for why it only happened now, that is because of the immunity of the person I guess. When a virus shifts from one host to another, the DNA change can be so abrupt that the virus fails to replicate. This is the typical case until one poor human becomes the weaklink, and the virus is now capable of infecting humans. It then spreads through the normal means based on which site of the body it grows abundantly in. As our lungs and other airways have high oxygen, a lot of bacteria and virus typically collect there. To learn further about this, you should read up on Disease Transmission, or just Viruses.
Like some people said, viruses change with their environment through mutations (evolution) and some combination are for humans dangerous. Why does it transfer so fast and wide? People are very mobile and a lot people are in one place (cities), and through the people the viruses are passed to other humans, whose immunsystem are not prepared for something like that (memory cells and so on) You can take SARS as an example, one infected person traveled through a massively frequented airport, stayed in a city for 1 day till he died. So a lot of people were infected and through their travels, SARS arrived in other countries
Don’t eat raw meat, snake, cat, dogs, insect, bats, fishes. Eww so disgusting. In YouTube, eastern Asia eat anything they find like snake. I do not know why people find it satisfying.
I can only agree to not eating raw (better to say not throughly cooked) meat, the rest... I don't even know where to start to say what is wrong. Some Insects (mosquitos,...) transfer some illness through sucking blood, if they are cooked than you can eat them. Fish? Where is the problem with fish compared to e.g. chicken? Bat's are more complicated since they are reservoir animals for a few pathogens. Oh, and for gods sake, please don't eat monkeys, they are to similar to humans in a few aspects. Thus only some small mutations are needed, that they can infect humans. We get zoonoses (illnesses transfered from animals) through our way of keeping animals (industrial, pets, etc.) and not through eating them (most of the time) And most importantly: keep yourself healthy and be hygienic. Wash and cook your food thoroughly. (Those are part of the 10 golden rules of the WHO) That's the best way to keep illnesses away. Believe in your immune system, it does much more than you think. Medications and so on don't always work, especially if they are not used correctly
Don't wash your meats though. That just helps bacteria spread. It took me months to convince my parents to stop.
That’ll happen when someone makes the teleporter from the movie “The Fly” and put a cat inside instead. Hopefully it’s all the right mutations too. Or... potentially meet cat girl aliens... or open a portal/rift into a fantasy world with beastkin... Anyways people eating thing they shouldn’t is always the perfect recipe for disaster. Why do people do this? Save a few Yen? Well now you’re dying or dead and you’re taking everyone with you. On the topic of viruses. It’s just another organism trying to survive and propagate. Unfortunately when it gets introduced into another species that hasn’t perfected defenses to it then those species tend to die off. So yeah what doesn’t kill use makes us stronger. Just evolution at work.
Just to put it in perspective, Coronavirii were always around. They just didn't have a chance to spread to the extent that we can do today with high speed travel and aircraft. IIRC the first Coronavirus diverged from its common ancestor in about 8000BC. They were always around. Just that the deaths were usually isolated and the infection kills itself off in time very often. But these days.... And of course, CNN. No one to broadcast infections to the whole world in the past so they died off unremarked.