Re: RE: Re: starship-design: Air born Viruses

[Kelly St <KellySt@aol.com>]

In a message dated 5/6/98 5:31:46 AM, lparker@cacaphony.net wrote:

>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.

<virus>
Opps! Teribly sorry!  Thought you were a silver sea bat.  Sorry about the
genocide!


>> -----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.
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>> >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
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>> >to be damamging...
>
>> >
>
>> >Andrew West
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>>
>
>> Actually most of the super plagues are from viruses not
>
>> adapted to humans.
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>> I.E. the whipe out all who are infected rapidly.
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>>
>
>
>
>Lee