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RE: Re: starship-design: Air born Viruses



Kelly brings up an important point. A well adapted organism does not wipe
out its host or it ceases to exist itself. This is not an issue when dealing
with an unknown organism. We are not the host that it evolved with and have
not built in defense mechanisms. Likewise, the organism in question could
prove to be excessively virulent (read fatal) to human hosts since we didn't
evolve with it and are not part of the normal evolutionary system of checks
and balances.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu
> [mailto:owner-starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu]On Behalf Of Kelly St
> Sent: Tuesday, May 05, 1998 7:18 PM
> To: starship-design@lists.uoregon.edu
> Subject: Re: Re: starship-design: Air born Viruses
>
>
>
> >Viruses that kill their hosts are not properly adapted -
> afterall, their
> >"aim" in life is to multiply.
> >Therefore the potentially dangerous ones are the ones that cannot be
> >adapted to their new hosts.
> >I expect that even if a virus is not adapted, it won't
> necessarily be able
> >to survive, or if it does, do any harm, but the potential is
> there to do
> >damage.
> >Plus, there are millions upon millions of diferent viruses,
> and you're
> >likely to be exposed to a fair few of those wherever you go.
> >Even if the chances aren't that good that a given virus will
> do you any
> >damage, if you're exposed to, say a hundred different
> viruses, only 1 has
> >to be damamging...
> >
> >Andrew West
>
> Actually most of the super plagues are from viruses not
> adapted to humans.
> I.E. the whipe out all who are infected rapidly.
>

Lee