Some Prions May Be Helpful

An anonymous reader writes "Sciencentral has an article saying that many prions, far from causing Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease are actually responsible for long-term memory storage."

Comments

Re:We have dynamic memory with refresh

[chadjg]

Yeah, it could be. But from what i've seen a lot of Alzheimer's patients can be damn healthy old in every other respect. A couple of my grand parents lasted over 10 years with that disease. They were strong up to the end, to the point that the staff at the rest home had to be careful.

I personally have had to help transport some alzheimer's patients by ambulance and when they are panicked they have incredible physical strength.

This could be way off, but Alzheimer's doesn't really kill, at least not quickly. It just makes life a curse.

I hope this isn't terribibly crass, but finding a cure or at least a good treatment is important financially. These people are very expensive to take care of. I'd put it at a higher priority than most other "popular" diseases. If this prion research has anything to do with anything that might find a cure for Alzheimer's, we probably should fund it big time. We are doing so well at keeping old people barely alive that a great number of them will be touched by this disease.