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Airborne Prions Prove Lethal In Mouse Studies

Posted by Soulskill on from the denny-crane dept.

sgunhouse writes "Wired has a story up on the lethality of airborne prions. It should be noted that prions (which cause 'mad cow disease' and similar disorders) are not normally airborne, and take a long time to kill the infected animal, but so far are 100% lethal if something else doesn't kill the animal first. So, they are not likely to be useful as a biological weapon (my first thought when reading their headline), but they present another safety precaution to consider."

1 of 116 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Who the F^-* ?? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Who would even do an experiment with such things?

    People who then know more than those that don't bother checking. Tribes with this characteristic are thought to optimize their use of limit resources slightly over people who would never think to check for themselves.

    One could call them ... winners.