I and the system are dropping vests every day

Chapter 157 Prions

The road was bad, Lei Zi's accelerator was still at the maximum, and Zhuo Zi, who never got motion sickness, almost vomited.

Fortunately, Zhuo Weihang also knew a little about Chinese medicine, he kept rubbing the Neiguan point on Zhuo Zi's small arm, so she didn't spit it out.

Shen Wei suspected that the driver did this on purpose, otherwise why would he be laughing?

During the bumpy journey, Ling Sisi's ball head became a little loose, and a strand of hair fell from the side.

The wind from the speeding car made this strand of hair flutter.

Gu Nanyi's neck was a little itchy, because Ling Si's fluttering hair would always pass by his ears.

He couldn't help but wanted to grab that strand of hair and help Si Si tie it up.

Fan Wu Jiu glanced at him lightly and felt that the young man in front of him was too young and was not in the same league as him at all.

Gu Nanyi was very keen, and he sensed the contempt from Master Ba.

The young man snorted, an old man, what's the big deal!
Huahua looked around, and compared to Ba Ye's demeanor, he suddenly felt that Gu Ge had no chance of winning in pursuing the leader.

The Baichuan County base is not very far from the river, and it takes about twenty minutes to get there.

After the two convoys got out of the car, they were shocked by the scene before them.

The walls of the base in Baichuan County are actually constructed of various cars, shopping carts, railings and other unknown metal objects.

It's no wonder that along the way, I didn't see any vehicles on the road. It turned out that they had piled up here.

"Get out of the car, we're here."

Gao Jianfei walked out of the car first, and then shouted to the convoy behind him.

Ling Sisi jumped out of the pickup truck with the members of Team Tongfeng.

After a group of people entered the gate, she suddenly felt a little nauseous.

The air in this place was not good at all, and there was always a faint sour smell that penetrated into her respiratory tract.

Bai Jingjing and Li Muqing followed their leader closely.

I don't know why, but they are a little nervous.

The men in this base all seem to be vicious, and their bodies are still shaking from time to time. It's not cold, so I don't know why they are shaking?
Moreover, no woman was seen among the people coming and going at the base in Baichuan County, let alone the elderly and children.

After walking for two blocks, even the nervous Yan Shisan felt something was wrong.

He strode together with Seventh Master, Eighth Master, Gu Nanyi, Zhuo Weihang, and Huahua, and surrounded the women and Xiao Jiu in the team.

Min Ran also kept Min Yue close to him intentionally or unintentionally.

Seeing this, Gao Jianfei smiled disdainfully.

I hope that after they enter the Baichuan County base, they can still maintain their original intentions.

The two convoys were quickly led to a house.

The headed black-faced man said in a deep voice, "Men and women live separately in our base. This building is a dormitory for girls. You women go in and pack your luggage first."

Min Ran didn't speak, but turned to look at Ling Sisi.

As long as the girl is with her, Min Yue shouldn't have any problems.

"Okay, let's go up then." Shen Wei said.

Ling Sisi nodded, she reached out and took Nuan Nuan from Zhuo Weihang's arms: "Let's go."

The head of the group didn't raise any objections, Xie Bi'an, Fan Wujiu, and Gu Nanyi naturally wouldn't say much.

Anyway, from their point of view, if these people acted like monsters, they would just meet a group of monster hunters like them.

The black-faced man couldn't help but feel proud. Another group of mutton sheep arrived. It seemed that the day when his superpowers would advance was not far away.

"Everyone, stop looking. Lao Li, you take them to the boys' dormitory, and then take them to the cafeteria after the arrangements are made."

After the black-faced man ordered, he left with a group of people.

Gao Jianfei brought back too many fat sheep and they had to be arranged.

Ling Sisi brought Shen Wei, Bai Jingjing, Li Muqing, Wang Hailan, Zhuo Zi, and Min Yue to the so-called girls' dormitory. Just as she put the child on the chair, Shen Wei took her hand.

She anxiously said: "Sister, there is a problem with this base."

"Well, I know, Xiao Wei is not afraid, I will contact Min Ran and the others later."

Ling Sisi replied calmly, Shen Wei was already very anxious, if she also became anxious, it would make Bai Jingjing and the others even more anxious.

Seeing Ling Sisi's calm expression, Shen Wei couldn't help becoming more anxious, but there are too many people present, so she can't say some things clearly.

At this time, Wang Hailan took off the backpack on her back and said: "These people do have problems, and the problems are serious."

"tell me the story."

Min Yue actually noticed something strange, and immediately answered Wang Hailan's words.

Ling Sisi was a little surprised.

For a long time, Wang Hailan seldom talked in the Tongfeng team, and she was busy with Li Muqing's three meals a day in the team. Such a person is easy to be ignored. Unexpectedly, she is also very careful, always Also looking at everything around.

Sure enough, it is not easy for people to survive after the end.

After checking the windows and doors in the room, Wang Hailan asked in a low voice, "Have you heard of prions?"

Ling Sisi shook his head: "I don't know."

"I don't know either." Bai Jingjing and the others replied in unison.

Shen Wei didn't make a sound, and she didn't know what a prion was, but now she can be sure that what Wang Hailan said must be the information she wanted to tell her sister.

0852 was very excited at this time: "Ling Sisi, Ling Sisi, I know what a virus is."

"Really? Grandpa, you are amazing, but let's first hear what Aunt Wang said is the same as your database."

Ling Sisi's tone sounded like coaxing a child, and 0852 felt great.

"Okay, okay, I'll listen with you."

Wang Hailan stretched out her hand and rubbed her eyebrows, as if she was thinking about where to start.

After a while of silence, she said: "I am a teacher, you should have heard Nan Yi mention it."

"And my husband is a scientific researcher who specializes in viruses."

"That's what he told me about prions."

"Although prions have the word virus in their name, they are actually completely different from viruses in the traditional definition."

"It is actually just a protein, which can be seen from its English name. Stanley B. Prusiner, who named the prion, used prion to represent "proteinaceous infectious", meaning Infectious protein particles."

"He also won the Nobel Prize in 1997 for his discovery of prions."

Wang Hailan smiled after saying this: "The information about prions may be a bit long, but I have to make it clear so that you can understand."

Ling Sisi: "It's okay, just tell me!"

"Aunt Wang, tell me quickly, we want to hear it."

Shen Wei, Min Yue and the others also urged them repeatedly.

Wang Hailan reached out and put the broken hair on her cheek behind her ears, with a solemn look on her face: "As early as the 18th century, people observed an abnormal behavior of Merino sheep. Some sheep kept itching because of severe itching. Rubbing fences, calling it 'sheep scrapie', the condition was subsequently defined as a transmissible spongiform encephalopathy."

"At the beginning of the 20th century, in 1920 neurologists Hans Gerhard Creutzfeldt and Alfons Maria Jakob discovered and described a human nervous system disorder of unknown etiology - Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease."

"By 1959, another human nervous system disorder, kuru, was discovered in Papua New Guinea."

"In April 1985, in Ashford, a small town in Kent, England, a farmer woman found that a cow in her pen became weak and emaciated.

At first, the cow seemed sleepy, listless, and uninterested in forage; then she couldn't stand, and staggered to the edge of the corral, foaming at the mouth and shaking like a high fever with...

When a veterinarian suspected that the cow had a rare brain tumor, he slaughtered it and performed an autopsy. When he carefully opened the skull, he was surprised by what he saw.

The brain tissue of the dead cow was full of countless small holes, like a pile of rotten meat riddled with holes. The rotten meat was filled with a large number of vacuoles caused by tissue necrosis, and there were signs of a large number of cell fiber proliferation...

If you use one word to describe it, the brain of this sick cow is like a sponge full of holes.

Therefore, after confirmation by the British Central Veterinary Laboratory, the disease was named bovine spongiform encephalopathy (BSE).In the folk it has a more familiar name - "mad cow disease".

Later, after research by scientists, the cause of mad cow disease was finally found out.

Cattle originally ate grass, but for commercial purposes, in order to produce more meat and make the cattle grow faster, the cattle farms let them eat so-called animal protein, including eating the same kind of meat or leftovers, and the cattle ate the same kind of meat If you eat meat, you will get mad cow disease caused by prions.

This disease is caused by ruminants being force-fed animal feed, especially cannibalism. If humans eat beef containing prions, the prions can be transmitted to humans.

Soon, through the joint research of scholars, it was discovered that scrapie, Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease and Kuru disease are the same neurological diseases.

Many researchers use various methods such as ionization, ultraviolet radiation, high temperature and high pressure, and other chemical substances that can be used to inactivate bacteria and viruses to inactivate pathogens, but none of them work.

Back in the 50s, a medical scientist named Daniel Carleton Gajdusek came to the Foll tribe to investigate Kuru disease.

After further observation, Gaidusek discovered a phenomenon that is difficult to explain: the vast majority of patients with kuru are women and young children.

As a doctor, Gaidushek decided to figure it all out.He investigated the local drinking water, daily food and soil, but found no suspected source of disease.

This is a bit strange, after all, most of the diseases of primitive aborigines are caused by these reasons.

Gaidushek continued his research, but found nothing.

Until one day, he finally saw the terrifying unknown side of this tribe...

Before that day, a respected elder in the village died of Kuru illness.

At his funeral, members of the entire clan surrounded his body.

One of the strong men with facial tattoos cut the corpse into pieces with a sharp knife in his hand, and then all the people present rushed up to grab those corpses...then, without hesitation, they took the life belonging to their relatives Human flesh is put in the mouth...

These people divided up the carcass just like a pride of lions divided up its prey.

The Fur people also have differences in family status when sharing the corpses of members.

Men tend to eat the parts full of muscle fibers, and the most unpopular brains are eventually reserved for women and children.

As a distinguished guest, Gaidusek was also forcibly divided into a piece of brain, which was not eaten in the end, but was brought back to the laboratory by Gaidusek.

He ground the piece of brain into a pulp and tested it in various ways, but nothing came of it.

He then put the protein particles extracted from the brain into the hole made in the orangutan's head.

After a period of time, the orangutan did show the symptoms of Kuru disease, but putting the protease-treated protein particles into the brain of the orangutan did not cause the symptoms of Kuru disease.

That is, prions can only be killed by protease treatment.

Later, from these experimental results, Gaidushek drew conclusions.

The pathogen of kuru is a chronic virus that invades the human brain and nervous system. It uses brain tissue as its main host and can remain latent for a long time.

Later, Stanley Brusch not only isolated the pathogen of sheep scrapie from sick animals and successfully inactivated it, but also named the pathogen "prion".

This is where prions got their current name.

Later, "the father of prion", Stanley Bruce, did not stop his research. They extended the case of prion to other diseases caused by protein misfolding.

Such as Alzheimer's disease, Parkinson's disease and Huntington's disease.

These atypical "prion" diseases have also been experimentally proven to be transmissible (note that transmissibility is used here instead of infectious), that is, injecting protein variants into experimental mice can cause similar symptoms.

As a result, prion diseases are thought to be more of a metastasis than an infection.

Because kuru is a transfer of prions caused by the rare practice of cannibalism, not a natural infection. "

As soon as Wang Hailan's voice fell, everyone understood the meaning of her words.

Sure enough, what she said after a pause stunned them.

"The Frey call this unknown disease "Kuru," which means trembling with fear.

Gradually, in addition to tremors and memory loss, people suffering from Kuru will lose most of their motor ability. "

"I noticed Gao Jianfei's abnormality from the first time I saw him. His hands were always trembling involuntarily. He couldn't remember how long he had lived in Baichuan County. Also, those big men with tattoos, They also have exactly the same symptoms, the team leader, the people in this base, they all eat~human~meat."

0852 sighed: "Unexpectedly, Aunt Wang usually doesn't speak, and when she speaks, she makes a big move. She actually speaks such rare information without any difference. She is also a talent."

Ling Sisi nodded: "Indeed, everyone has their strengths, so no one should be underestimated."

One person communicates with one another.

Wang Hailan's words made the women of Team Tongfeng shudder.

(End of this chapter)