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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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FOOT-AND-MOUTH BELIEVED TO BE FIRST VIRUS
UNABLE TO SPREAD THROUGH MICROSOFT OUTLOOKResearchers Shocked to Finally Find Virus That Email App Doesn't Like Atlanta, Ga. (SatireWire.com) - Scientists at the Centers for Disease Control and Symantec's AntiVirus Research Center today confirmed that foot-and-mouth disease cannot be spread by Microsoft's Outlook email application, believed to be the first time the program has ever failed to propagate a major virus. "Frankly, we've never heard of a virus that couldn't spread through Microsoft Outlook, so our findings were, to say the least, unexpected," said Clive Sarnow, director of the CDC's infectious disease unit. The study was immediately hailed by British officials, who said it will save millions of pounds and thousands of man hours. "Up until now we have, quite naturally, assumed that both foot-and-mouth and mad cow were spread by Microsoft Outlook," said Nick Brown, Britain's Agriculture Minister. "By eliminating it, we can focus our resources elsewhere." However, researchers in the Netherlands, where foot-and-mouth has recently appeared, said they are not yet prepared to disqualify Outlook, which has been the progenitor of viruses such as "I Love You," "Bubbleboy," "Anna Kournikova," and "Naked Wife," to name but a few. Said Nils Overmars, director of the Molecular Virology Lab at Leiden University: "It's not that we don't trust the research, it's just that as scientists, we are trained to be skeptical of any finding that flies in the face of established truth. And this one flies in the face like a blind drunk sparrow." Executives at Microsoft, meanwhile, were equally skeptical, insisting that Outlook's patented Virus Transfer Protocol (VTP) has proven virtually pervious to any virus. The company, however, will issue a free VTP patch if it turns out the application is not vulnerable to foot-and-mouth. Such an admission would be embarrassing for the software giant, but Symantec virologist Ariel Kologne insisted that no one is more humiliated by the study than she is. "Only last week, I had a reporter ask if the foot-and-mouth virus spreads through Microsoft Outlook, and I told him, 'Doesn't everything?'" she recalled. "Who would've thought?" RECOMMEND </cgibin/birdcast.cgi> THIS PAGE </cgibin/birdcast.cgi> Copyright © 2001, SatireWire. 
The idiot also known as Capfka ...
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Joined: Aug 2000
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Yes, that brought a wide smile to my face, having long been free of Offal Express on my PC. Homegrown is best for email, says he, plugging the superb Pegasus once more. http://www.pmail.com NZ once again helping keep the world virus-free.
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Joined: Dec 2000
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old hand
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old hand
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Someone (a nurse in fact), once asked me whether having an anti-virus programme on my computer had helped me to stop getting sick! Talk about the Twilight Zone! I stumbled though when trying to define what a real virus is. Foot and mouth (hoof) disease is a virus, right? BSE is not though, right? I've read numerous articles on the subject, but not one adequately explained the nature of disease. If you want a laugh read this over-confident EU report on BSE: http://europa.eu.int/comm/food/fs/bse/bse20_en.html/
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old hand
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old hand
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Best I can say about BSE (and related diseases - scrapie, CJD etc) is that it appears to be caused by 'prions'. Prions are types of proteins that have the habit of generating more of their kind when placed in a conducive environment - to that extent they are a lot like viruses. Because, however, they contain no genetic material - neither DNA nor RNA (as viruses do) - it is difficult to classify them as infectious agents. Proteins, in any case, seem to do their job primarily through their shape - the way the amino acid chains are folded up - and it seems that prions merely happen to be proteins whose shape catalyses nearby amino acids to take on the same shape. This, as you can imagine, will trigger off a chain reaction of sorts within an amino acid rich area, thereby starving other cells/functions of the amino acids they require for their functioning. In time, the prions take over the area concerned. As we have seen - brains appear to be particularly vulnerable to these processes - hence the 'mad cow' aspect of the disease.
Since prions aren't viruses or bacteria, killing them, or 'sterilising' food material that contains them, is virtually impossible (I don't think any methods so far have eliminated prions whilst retaining the food - since the sibstances are virtually identical) - hence the danger of eating any prion-infected material.
This is an 'educated' collation on my part, having read a number of articles in the UK concerning the disease. Hope it helps.
On-topic - regarding confusion between human and computer viruses, you might wish to read Neal Stephenson's Snow Crash in which a type of computer virus affects humans. The whole Tower of Babel premise is suitably far-fetched, but the novel is great fun anyway (until the rather OTT ending).
cheer
the sunshine warrior
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enthusiast
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enthusiast
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Assuming there are only two states of the prion, normal and rogue, a prion can be regarded as a gene that carries a single bit of information.
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old hand
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old hand
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True - to a certain extent.
1. In most organisms (viruses included) genotype and phenotype are distinct. In prions, on the other hand, the phenotype is all you have.
2. It would be difficult to define the number of bits of information a prion contains. As you say, it could be considered merely an on-off type - a single bit of information, but that is surely only related to IT interpretations, and may have nothing to do with the way in which the prion works. I dunno - just being unnecessarily contentious, I guess...
cheer
the sunshine warrior
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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The prion-virus problem reminds me of a bumper sticker I saw a long time ago: "If you're not confused, you just don't understand the situation."
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Carpal Tunnel
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Carpal Tunnel
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Snow Crash was my introduction to Neal Stephenson. It is a very visual novel and certainly a great read. Somehow I was so taken by the writing that I don't remember the ending (OTT? Oh! Over The Top). Well, I guess I like a little OTT now and then.
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Pooh-Bah
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Pooh-Bah
Joined: Mar 2001
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Assuming there are only two states of the prion, normal and rogue, a prion can be regarded as a gene that carries a single bit of information.
Okay, guys, give it up (the information). Prions: clear = ice 9. Norm/rogue=binary, clear--and what of it? genomes/phenomes, jimminy crickets, that's a long time ago. 50 words or less. :) and thanks.
IP
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journeyman
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journeyman
Joined: Mar 2001
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Oh, I loathe Outlook. As resident computer nerd (a geek is someone who bites the heads off chickens) of my community, I'm constantly warning people away from it... Of course I'm immediately forwarding it to all....
Thanks for the laugh!
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