so, mad kissing disease?

[Guest guest]

lucky hamsters...

 

Article Preview

Double rethink on prion diseases

27 May 2006

Andy Coghlan

Magazine issue 2553

Evidence has emerged that infectious prions could be spread when

animals lick each other during grooming sessions

IT IS widely accepted that diseases such as BSE can be contracted by

eating brain tissue from an infected animal. Yet it remains a mystery

how similar diseases such as scrapie can spread between sheep that eat

nothing but grass, or how chronic wasting disease can spread between

wild, free-roving animals like elk. Now, evidence has emerged

suggesting that the infectious agents, called prions, could spread when

animals lick one another during mutual grooming sessions.

 

Richard Bessen and his colleagues at Montana State University in

Bozeman injected the brains of hamsters with a strain of prion disease

that normally infects mink but can also infect hamsters. They found

that the prions fanned out through facial nerves to reach the nose and

tongue, accumulating in taste buds and other oral and nasal tissues

(Journal of Virology, vol 80, p 4546). This raises the possibility that

infected animals might then spread the ...

 

The complete article is 637 words long.

To continue reading this article, to New Scientist. Get 4

issues of New Scientist magazine and instant access to all online

content for only CAD $5.95

Following this order your subscription to New Scientist will continue

automatically - you will be charged, ongoing, CAD $43 every 6 months.

This subscription can be easily cancelled at any time.

This offer is exclusively for users in Canada

If you are in the UK please click here , if you are in Australia or New

Zealand please All other users please click here

 

 

What's gonna happen when the buses don't run

and what's gonna happen when the, winter comes

what are you gonna do,

what are you gonna do

when the oil runs out?