Interesting, I didn’t know prions lasted so long on bare soil. I don’t imagine it’s a simple thing for a prion to jump from animal to animal though. Certainly not any less complex than jumping to humans? Right?
I’m not well-versed enough on prions to make an incredibly informed opinion. Apex predators somehow have managed to survive it for eons, though. Prions are extremely odd, and I’m sure one day we will figure out how to reverse their effect. There are some theories that prions could have formed the basis for life if life was seeded by asteroids, as they are incredibly resilient to heat, radiation, chemicals, etc.
From the CDC’s website, it looks like CWD might not affect canids and might not affect humans, as we are just too different from the cloven-hoofed forest puppies. But much like consuming fish parasites that don’t affect humans, it seems they don’t recommend eating sick animals just on the off chance that you are patient zero for a new, fun, lethal protein :)
Interesting, I didn’t know prions lasted so long on bare soil. I don’t imagine it’s a simple thing for a prion to jump from animal to animal though. Certainly not any less complex than jumping to humans? Right?
I’m not well-versed enough on prions to make an incredibly informed opinion. Apex predators somehow have managed to survive it for eons, though. Prions are extremely odd, and I’m sure one day we will figure out how to reverse their effect. There are some theories that prions could have formed the basis for life if life was seeded by asteroids, as they are incredibly resilient to heat, radiation, chemicals, etc.
From the CDC’s website, it looks like CWD might not affect canids and might not affect humans, as we are just too different from the cloven-hoofed forest puppies. But much like consuming fish parasites that don’t affect humans, it seems they don’t recommend eating sick animals just on the off chance that you are patient zero for a new, fun, lethal protein :)