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Ailurophobia

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Posts posted by Ailurophobia

  1.  

    This is a reason why we often try to quarantine a disease.

    Quarantine does not secure protection against disease.

    It is true that over any significant length of co-evolution pathogens tend to mellow out a bit (at least it appears to be the case in viruses), partially because killing the host is not a very good long-term strategy. However, pathogens generally do not modulate their virulence as response, it is merely a matter of selection. Adaptation is in essence a passive mechanism, i.e. those strains that kill their host fast tend to spread slower than the others over evolutionary time scales. But if spreads fast, there is a chance that it kills of its host before any kind of selective pressure could kick in.

     

    That being said, whether that could happen in any population depends on a lot of other factors, including size of the host populations, migration and so on. Humans are quite abundant and wide spread, so there is a good chance that pockets of survivors will exist and/or that there are people who will be immune, for example

    Yes, but then again diseases evolve more quickly in the scale of things. Adaption may be passive but within a matter of days a disease can change dramatically, and within months/years a disease could perhaps even switch target species. A disease may not even evolve down the path of lower virulence when it could spread and adapt off humanity and then target another species.

  2.  

    At what level?

    Really any, I'm just interested in learning more about the field.

    As a task or as a scholar?

     

    If you want to help fight death I'd suggest using computers to analyze the DNA rather than textbooks.

    Central Dogma is the principle of all life, and it's properties are fascinating. We don't even know all there is to know about genetics. If I was looking to life forever I'd be working at a cancer research center.

  3. Popular game pandemic has conquered the iPhone market. Owned by many people, the game's point is in essence to kill every last human being on earth...but would a disease actually do this? To start, a disease is really only ever as deadly as it needs to be. Virulence, the level of how deadly a disease is is primarily determined by how much a disease needs or doesn't need to spread. The cold for example, has little to no side-effects because it's very easy to spread and gains nothing from hurting you. Something like Ebola would be on the opposite end of the scale. So in theory, if the cold was given to everyone, would it become harmless? Evidence suggests that such has happened in the passed through viruses actually becoming part of our genetic code with up to 8% of our current genome being viruses according to Sharon Moalem in Survival of The Sickest. If a virus were to kill every last human on earth, that would be the end of that virus...

    However, there is a flaw in that theory because if a disease were to spread before it could adapt to become less virulent could it actually end itself...? I'd like to hear what all of you guys think.

     

    Also to consider: things that have wiped out mass majorities of people in the past such as the black death.

  4. We've not much reason to believe aliens exist, besides common sense on either side...(The universe is to big for them to not, or we would have met/known if they did). So, you can't really argue the point of existence because we don't have a majority of the factors, the big one is being able to see far enough.

  5. science friction contain word science bro science

    Science Fiction also contains the word fiction. The stuff in Star-Trek isn't real, if we had the knowledge to figure that stuff out we'd have those things like super space ships and phasers. Alas, science fiction is mostly concepts.

    However, I'm not completely opposed to the fact that we may be able to change the laws of physics. Without the answer to the link given, we can't answer the question here.

    Is it scientifically possible to prove something is impossible?:

    http://www.scienceforums.net/topic/80895-is-it-scientifically-possible-to-prove-something-is-impossible/

    Also, a lot of a studies info get's overwritten in science all the time. We constantly find new things we thought were "crazy" before, such as changing physics.

  6. I'm no psychologist, I can't even spell half of the words with the prefix psych-, however I do know that psychology is a relatively unstable field. Canadian Psychologist Donald Olding Hebb once stated that the Half-Life of Knowledge, or the time it takes for half a field's knowledge to be outgrown, is only 5 years. With that, does anyone who knows a lot about psychology agree, disagree, or have anything to share regarding the almost inevitable demise of a lot of psychologies new knowledge, or why it is so?

  7. In my opinion, it's more of a perceptive thing. Anyone with an IQ above 70 still has standard intellectual potential, so if you dislike the person's point of view, which is partially attributed to factors and exposures in life, that's mostly you besides factual value. However that's more knowledge and not intellect.

  8. (On The Topic Of Histeria)

    I'm not exactly against the engineering of crops, but have you heard of Monsanto's "Terminator Seed"? It essentially produces a non-fertile seed so that it can't be reused. They do this so there seeds must be bought again, but think of the problems that has to potential to bring.

  9. Wow, this is very interesting, but in a sense also rather upsetting. Personally I have a cat that kills everything and brings it to my doorstep then cuddles all over me. Yikes.

    Responding to what you said about suicide, do you think it could be because the person who is now dead, and most likely alone, can be munched on by scavengers like the mouse?

  10. Hello everyone, I read about this protozoan about a month ago and it's been interesting me since. In one book, I read that it has affected about 50% of the world's population and on wikipedia I read only 33%. Whatever the number it's still extremely significant, from my knowledge it has shown to affect behavior so that comes down to over 30% of the world at least under the effect of behavioral changes or any of the parasites plethora of defects. I don't know a lot about this subject, but does anyone know quite a bit about it?




  11. Hello everyone, I read about this protozoan about a month ago and it's been interesting me since. In one book, I read that it has affected about 50% of the world's population and on wikipedia I read only 33%. Whatever the number it's still extremely significant, from my knowledge it has shown to affect behavior so that comes down to over 30% of the world at least under the effect of behavioral changes or any of the parasites plethora of defects. I don't know a lot about this subject, but does anyone know quite a bit about it?

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