... in mice - science chat

[BinturongsSmellOfPopcorn]

A place to talk about all disciplines and levels of science - what you're working on, what you're teaching, what you've read.

Non academics welcome.

I get why this is being retracted. The mystery is how it ever got in retractionwatch.com/2022/12/05/a-paper-used-capital-ts-instead-of-error-bars-but-wait-theres-more/?

Checking in 🦠

As an aside, has anyone else noticed when you type ‘bacteria’ it gives you a virus emoji?

Checking in @CyanCyan with a video of Plasmodium falciparum schizonts explosively exiting their host red blood cells, sending the daughter merozoites ricocheting around the bloodstream.

Wow! Good video.

Am a non-scientist, but reading with interest. And I believe I forgot to say thanks for the tortoiseshell cat explanations on the other thread - so I shall do so here. Thanks! Fascinating.

Terrifying @Kucingsparkles.

I’m a noob scientist as I’m in the final year of an undergrad. We’re currently focusing on infectious diseases and of all the pathogens I’m finding protists the hardest to get my head around. And also some of the most disturbing (I think prions top that category for me).

I’m finding protists the hardest to get my head around.

The apicomplexan parasites are some of the weirdest and most specialised pathogens. I used to work with P. falciparum and still find them utterly fascinating and beautiful.

On the subject on or prions, how many more cases of vCJD do you think might emerge over the next couple of decades, given its long incubation period? And do you think some rapid-onset dementias in elderly people may actually be vCJD but go overlooked?

Ooh, good questions! I don't know much about prion diseases, unfortunately - apart from perhaps some molecular details of amyloid proteins.

The National CJD Research & Surveillance Unit has some useful data and explanations of diagnostic criteria.

www.cjd.ed.ac.uk

In particular, there is some detailed explanation of diagnostic criteria which can distinguish vCJD from other similar-appearing diseases.

www.cjd.ed.ac.uk/sites/default/files/investigations.pdf

Thanks @Kucingsparkles, that’s exactly the sort of thing I was looking for.

I recall some studies a few years ago now showing that there might be different degrees of susceptibility to prion disease based on PRNP genotype, and that most known vCJD patients had the high susceptibility genotype. The speculation was that we might see a second wave at some later date when people with moderate susceptibility who were exposed to BSE started to develop the disease. All quite hypothetical though, even with mouse/sheep data.

It made me wonder if dogs and cats would be susceptible to it if they lived longer, as I imagine quite a lot of brain and spinal cord matter made (makes?) its way into pet food. And also whether that burger I ate in 1996 will come back to haunt me.

I went down a kuru rabbit hole while we were studying the topic, disturbing stuff.

And sorry @ChairOfInvisibleStudies I meant to say thanks for that info at the beginning of my post. That sounds very conceivable and I hope it turns out not to be the case.

Not science, exactly, but a reminder to always check data presentation: twitter.com/peterricev2/status/1600985486105145344?

I’m tired and struggling... is it that they haven’t stated what is most and least deprived?

Oh actually they have <gives up>

This doesn't mention longevity but seems like some cats did get prion disease during the BSE years but not dogs. (It's not exactly my field so I've not read it properly)

journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0050623

is it that the data it’s taken from don’t specify sex but drinkaware has referred to males?

It's a bit unusual to have a trend with the dates descending left to right but so long as they're labelled is that a problem?
Or is there something else?

Yes I thought so too. We had this one recently, I almost fainted

@ErrolTheDragon thank you for that link, it looks interesting. I will have a read tomorrow.

Cyan, it's the order of the X axis - reversed so most people will read it as a declining trend when it's actually increasing.

It is labelled so it's not actually lying, but it is deceptive.

Ah. That was the first thing I noticed but I assumed it would be something more obscure because of the couple of mins comment.