Why you shouldn't eat your mother (Prions)

The Guardian (UK) ^ | 9/23/2007

[Renfield]

We live in the age of the prion, says New York writer DT Max in his introduction to this neat little medical whodunit. The claim sounds worthy of a car advert. You are never alone with a prion. That sort of thing.

In fact, the prion is a strange, non-living infectious agent whose behaviour was widely disputed until US medical researcher Stanley Prusiner confirmed its existence in a series of elegant experiments that won him a Nobel Prize for physiology in 1997. Now, most scientists accept prions are responsible for a range of modern curses: mad cow disease, the fatal sheep ailment scrapie, the deadly brain ailment Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and a number of other unpleasant afflictions.....

[PeterPrinciple]

The fact that Gajdusek was also an enthusiastic paedophile who graphically recorded his sexual exploits with young Fore people in his laboratory diaries was not realised at the time. Eventually, he was charged, in the US, with molesting children and after pleading guilty, sentenced to 19 months in jail.

Today, thanks to Gajdusek, Prusiner and others, we know the nature of the unknown agent responsible for kuru, as well as for mad cow disease, scrapie, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and other related illnesses. It is the prion, a misfolded protein whose presence seems to trigger a biochemical avalanche in the brain. Misfolding spreads among its proteins, killing off neurones.

---

The ends justify the means?

[struwwelpeter]

Prions (I still like the other proposed name, virio) are very interesting. Everything "alive" (debate on whether viruses represent life or not) reproduces/increases in numbers using some kind of nucleic acid. Double-stranded DNA for most, and RNA for a small number of viruses.

When I was in school we studied certain "as yet" unclassified diseases, such as Scrapie, which were termed "slow viruses". The answer turned out to be even stranger than we'd believed at the time.

Prions have no nucleic acid whatsoever. They are a pure protein, folded in a strange way, very hard to destroy and reproducing and infecting by unknown means.

An alien life form? Or something left over from the primordial ooze that begat life?

[lowbridge]

Undertaker Morning.
Man Good Morning.
Undertaker What can I do for you, squire?
Man Um, well, I wonder if you can help me. You see, my mother has just died.
Undertaker Ah well, we can help you. We deal with stiffs.
Man What?
Undertaker Well, there’s three things we can do with your mum. We can bury her, burn her, or dump her.
Man Dump her?
Undertaker Dump her in the Thames.
Man What?
Undertaker Oh, did you like her?
Man Yes!
Undertaker Oh well, we won’t dump her, then. Well, what do you think? We can bury her or burn her.
Man Well, which do you recommend?
Undertaker Well, they’re both nasty. If we burn her, she gets stuffed in the flames, crackle, crackle, crackle, which is a bit of a shock if she’s not quite dead, but quick. (the audience starts booing) and then we give you handful of ashes, which you can pretend are hers.
Man Oh.
Undertaker Or, if we bury her she gets eaten up lots of weevils, and nasty maggots, (the booing increases) which as I said before is a bit of a shock if she’s not quite dead.
Man I see. Well, she’s definitely dead.
Undertaker Where is she?
Man She’s in this sack.
Undertaker Can I have a look? She looks quite young.
Man Yes, yes, she was.

Increasing protests from audience
Undertaker (calling) Fred!
Fred’s voice Yeah?
Undertaker I think we’ve got an eater.
Man What?

Another undertaker pokes his head round the door
Fred Right, I’ll get the oven on. (goes off)
Man Er, excuse me, um, are you suggesting eating my mother?
Undertaker Er ... Yeah. Not raw. Cooked.
Man What?
Undertaker Yes, roasted with a few french fries, broccoli, horseradish sauce ...
Man Well, I do feel a bit peckish.

http://www.ibras.dk/montypython/episode26.htm

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks for posting this Renfield. :’) I wonder if the Internet is a prion? ;’)