Seanan McGuire (seanan_mcguire) wrote,
Seanan McGuire
seanan_mcguire
  • Mood: dubious
  • Music: Garden Verge, 'Shadow of a Habit.'

In other news, plague.

Researchers have found out what made the 1918 flu pandemic so deadly. Because that's always a good idea. Basically, there's a three-gene sequence which tells the virus go 'you know what? The upper respiratory tract is dull. Let's go have a party in the lungs!' This leads to pneumonia, which leads to death. And since it's viral pneumonia, rather than bacterial pneumonia, it's both droplet-based and unperturbed by silly little things like antibiotics. Whee!

To quote the article: "The three genes -- called PA, PB1, and PB2 -- along with a 1918 version of the nucleoprotein or NP gene, made modern seasonal flu kill ferrets in much the same way as the original 1918 flu, Kawaoka's team found." Now. Maybe I'm being a little silly here, but does building a better flu really sound like a good idea? To anybody? I've read The Stand. I don't feel like moving to Colorado. I love pandemics in history and in theory, but I'd really rather not have 'They Fucked Around With Flu' stamped on mankind's collective tombstone.

In other news, small boys still hold firecrackers in their bare hands, because maybe this time, it's going to go differently.
Tags: mad science, pandemic time
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  • 52 comments
...go 2 levels up... Expand

kyburg

January 8 2009, 17:06:37 UTC 8 years ago Edited:  January 8 2009, 17:06:52 UTC

No, but I've heard of it. MRSA concerns me more (and makes me angrier, to be honest - that bug is ENTIRELY institutional born and raised, due to sheer incompetence) - but viruses? Heh. I've always maintained there is nothing more evil than a virus...and nothing that better proves the existence (if you need such things) of intelligent design as a concept.

Because baby - OMG - effective, spare and efficient as hell.

Jim comes home from work nattering about how many markers the recent bird flu has in common with the 1918 pandemic - and it's more a report on how easy is to scare the common monkeys in hospitals. They don't really what the heck they're talking about, and that's scary too.

Smallpox has enough, reasonably harmless close cousins that can be used to gain immunity, without having to kill it outright. I'm with you.

But then again, flashy oh-kill-me-now viruses don't have anything on the ones that can go dormant for decades, doing all kinds of mischief in the meantime. (I'm certain...nearly dead certain...in less than another decade, we'll find out Type I diabetes is early exposure to something like a virus, maybe even a prion, that locks into an immune system and takes all that time to kill the targeted structure. 90% of all Type I's don't have another relative who has it (unlike the Type II which is 50% or higher genetic heritability...don't get me started) THOSE bugs really deserve my ire - sneaky, lazy bastards.)

Yeah, AIDS was a curse. Riiiight. Gave everyone a fat kick in the ass and got them to work. Only the space program and WWII sped up technological advances at the same rate.

And for my money, gimme the bug that kills me quick - over the one that drags it out for ten years and takes me a piece at a time. Please. Because if I'm going, gimme out of here - enough already, neh?

seanan_mcguire

January 11 2009, 21:17:23 UTC 8 years ago

Oh, we're all gonna die of smallpox. It's pretty simple. MRSA is running a close second in my estimation.

kyburg

January 12 2009, 16:45:19 UTC 8 years ago

You know. Those two would feed each other so well, I wonder if anyone would be able to tell at the end.

Chicken and the egg, anyone?