this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
125 points (98.4% liked)
Asklemmy
43676 readers
1578 users here now
A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions
Search asklemmy π
If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!
- Open-ended question
- Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
- Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
- Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
- An actual topic of discussion
Looking for support?
Looking for a community?
- Lemmyverse: community search
- sub.rehab: maps old subreddits to fediverse options, marks official as such
- [email protected]: a community for finding communities
~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
Microbiology can be so much fun!
Streptococcus pyogenes causes a flesh-eating disease (necrotizing fasciitis). This species of bacteria releases toxins that kill living tissue, so you better make sure that paper cut doesnβt get infected.
Mycobacterium tuberculosis is famous for a bunch of different pandemics over the centuries. If you thought covid was fun, imagine coughing up blood.
Clostridium botulinum is special, because it produces a very spicy toxin, so you donβt even have to ingest any living cells or spores of C. botulinum to get killed by it. If you do, you can even have your very own toxin factory inside you.
Vibrio cholerae is another classic responsible for numerous pandemics. This one is a bit different, because it involves lethal amounts of diarrhea.
Oh, and the scary bit? There are people who donβt believe bacteria or viruses exist. They actively oppose taking measures against these things. Humans can be truly horrifying at times.
"Lethal amounts of diarrhea" has now entered second place on my Worst Nightmares list. Thanks for that...
Rule 34
Another "fun" fact: it's one of the biggest killers in the third world, especially of small children, and at some point there was a diarrhea magazine as a result.
I can't believe tetanus got left out here. It's a common soil bacteria like botulism, but has the opposite effect if it gets in you. It makes all your muscles forcibly contract and cramp up until you die.
Botulism is really easy to get if you can food wrong, because it's the one abundant bacteria that will survive limitless time at 100C. (To can vulnerable things properly, you use high pressures to make the water get hotter before it begins to boil, and cools down as a result)
Your immune system gives some protection against botulinum, but it doesn't fully develop until about six months to a year old. This is why you should never ever feed honey to an infant. Bees will occasionally end up on the ground, picking up botulinum. There's a very small chance of a trace of the bug ending up in honey. It's not enough to harm an older child or adult, but even thst tiny amount can kill a baby.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/botulism
Yeah, it will basically colonise their intestines instead of the bacteria that are supposed to, and just poison them continuously. It's especially a concern if you live near a construction site just because of all the dirt being moved around and exposed to air, IIRC.
These are nasty, but I still find rabies the most scary
If we're branching out into possible non-life, prion diseases like mad cow or kuru have a creep factor. You could be terminally infected already, as you read this, and not know until you start getting clumsy and confused years from now. Also kuru is spread by long-term habitual brain cannibalism, so that's culturally uncomfortable.
This was not a good thread to read before bed
Prions - yeah, they're definitly creepy. They're also hard to destroy, so they can accumulate in nature over time.
And while we're at it, I think Naegleria fowleri, the brain eating amoeba that lives in warm water and gets in through your nose should get an honorable mention!
Thank the decomposers, I guess.
Hey, I'm clumsy and confused already!
Me too, bro. That's a mood.
You can't leave us hanging, what's 1st place on your list?
Reincarnation, which has now been reinforced by no. 2 (pun not intended, but welcomed).
Well, how about reincarnation coupled with eternal lethal diarrhea?
Well... if it means I'd die of lethal diarrhea immediately after being reincarnated, I guess it could be worse! Like having to live 6-7 decades with the knowledge that I may or may not, at one point, contract lethal diarrhea, and that I'll just keep on coming back to this particular reverse-roulette wheel over and over and over again, being forced to play the odds on an infinite canvas of probabilities. You know what they say, the anxiety's always worse than the thing-in-itself!
Viruses are sneaky! Their whole goal is to trick you into helping them survive and reproduce.