Zombie Deer Disease may spread to humans, scientists warn

No, just the “can’t stop mindlessly talking about it,” vibe, you know, like cross-fit and veganism :wink:

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Ah, thanks (though I’ve met a lot of vegans, and never one that insisted on talking about it).

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Did I mention I have an air fryer? It’s fantastic.

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Weirdly, my dad did his physics PhD on just the right technology to destroy and permanently entomb prions safely, a bit of tech called “Plasma Glassification.” Basically, put the waste (radioactive, prions, old Cold War biowarfare warheads, etc.) inside a well-insulated box lined with glass, add a grounding electrode and the works from a plasma cutter on opposite sides, and turn it on. The plasma rips apart all the molecules, including prions, the gases escape through a glass frit filter, the solid stuff condenses on and clings to the glass, and when everything is processed, you raise the temperature of the plasma until all the glass slumps, which then forms a glass brick at the bottom of the chamber that contains all the remnants of the waste. Your final product is a hunk of glass, inert, with anything still hazardous trapped inside of it.

Why don’t they use this 60-year-old technology? It’s expensive, not so much for the glass or the apparatus, but in terms of energy. But it’s out there, it is well understood, and it works.

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Zombie Deer Disease may spread to humans,

And a Merry Christmas to you, too!

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So, the take away is we all need to get pet wolves?

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complaining homer simpson GIF
Something new to worry about…

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We have CWD all through the deer population in VA, lots of hunters who butcher their own kills, some well, some not, and a 20+ year potential incubation period. The current absence of cases in himans is certainly not terribly reassuring. And CJD is very difficult to dianose in humans other than on autopsy, and there usually needs to be a suspicion. I won’t eat venison, even though i actually like it. Not worth the risk. And around here, a disproportionate number of the hunters also wear red hats, so guessing unlikely to listen to us eggheads anyway. Sigh…

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Ugh.

The More You Know Wow GIF by Kim's Convenience

I think it’s been within that time that I’ve eaten it. Oh well, fingers crossed. :grimacing:

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This sounds kinda like an air fryer

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To make up for that, they eat human carcasses.

Also, ZAMBI.

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Some scientists say that the predators are essential to curbing the spread of Chronic Wasting Disease because they pick off weak deer.

I’m glad the word, “Deer”, was included in that sentence; I was imagining packs of wolves running the streets, hunting down infected people (I could see this becoming a Blum House movie).

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Ain’t the food industry grand? :thinking::nauseated_face:

@lastchance “Prions are forever”, the saddest entry in the James Bond franchise.

According to my Extinction Bingo Card, the greatest danger is an 11’ 8" Bridge.

We need a vomit emoji, stat!

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Other things that don’t kill prions: autoclaves, embalming, cremation, hydrogen peroxide gas plasma, microwaves, UV light, hydrochloric acid. https://cha.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/ICHE-Feb-2010-Rutala-guideline_for_disinfection_and_sterilization_of_prioncontaminated_medical_instruments.pdf

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Here in Missouri, the conservation dept takes CWD very seriously. Around a dozen counties have mandatory testing for CWD in hunter-killed deer. So far it seems to be about containment, not necessarily eradication.

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From the referenced paper: “The disease is most likely transmitted horizontally through infectious bodily fluids such as saliva, urine, and feces. Once excreted into the environment, CWD prions can persist for years and withstand extremely high levels of disinfectants such as heat, radiation, and formaldehyde . CWD prions also appear to be capable of binding to certain plants, with the ability to be transported while still potentially remaining infectious.”

Certainly sounds like something that could aerosolize. Also judging by the distribution map we might see Colorado, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and maybe even Wyoming be reliably blue states in a decade or two.

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Oooh, that’s bleak :sob:

Welcome aboard, comrade.

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Now that you mention it, I have one of those. They’re fantastic!

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Subject to some wild treatment they might get to be an aerosol (see Herr Doktor Beschizza’s comment about an abattoir above) but i’m going to very briefly flash my phd in Biochemistry and humbly doubt that any globular protein (like a prion) can remain un-denatured for “years” outside of an organism, particularly if subject to dehydration or solar radiation. Also once aerosol-ed by whatever extreme means, they’d have to pass through the blood-brain barrier of the new host undigested by the full array of proteases.

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