Zombie deer are really coming!
For Laurie Hill, owner of maple farm in Gilman Village, Taylor County, Wisconsin, this summer has driven her crazy — not by the scorching sun, but by the terrible zombie deer disease on her farm, more than 300 white-tailed deer will be killed, and the business that has been done for more than 30 years will soon be gone.
Zombie deer disease, also known as mad deer disease, officially known as chronic wasting disease, is a kind of infectious spongiform encephalopathy, due to prion protein misfolding into prion caused by the body, will lead to the deer's brain tissue lesions, until completely hollowed out, equivalent to brain flowers are turned into paste, deer naturally become zombies. Note that it is not a prion, that is what was previously said, the prion is not a virus, but a causative agent composed only of proteins, does not contain nucleic acids, but is self-replicating and infectious.
Not only deer brain flowers will become mushy, but other mammals, including humans, but the saying is more euphemistic, the cow's called mad cow disease, the sheep's called sheep itching, the human vinaya, called Keya's disease, and a kind of Culoo disease that has disappeared and is prevalent in the cannibal tribes of Papua New Guinea, which is collectively known as infectious spongiform encephalopathy, which is caused by prion proteins.
The biggest characteristic of the zombie deer is insanity, not afraid of humans, and more and more emaciated, stiff and uncoordinated movements, saliva grinding teeth extremely thirsty, extremely aggressive, completely like zombies, after being tortured and finally dying, without any hope of survival. Think of your head hollowed out, but the person is still alive, probably you can understand the zombie deer.
How zombie deer disease is transmitted is not fully understood, it may be that the excrement of sick deer, saliva contaminated hay, water sources, other deer eat and drink after being infected. It is currently thought that the disease will only spread in deer herds and will not be transmitted to humans, but experiments have found that the poison can spread to species such as squirrel monkeys, sheep, cattle, voles, ferrets and mice.
Although there is no conclusive evidence that zombie deer disease can be transmitted to humans, there are also some suspected cases, such as a degenerative neurological disease in 2002 after eating wild game in Wisconsin, with difficulty writing, unstable gait, followed by dementia, speech abnormalities and myoclonus convulsions, and died 3 months later, and the autopsy showed that his subcortical spongiform lesions were consistent with Kyoýt-Jakob disease.
The most frightening thing is that prions are extremely viable and can remain contagious in the environment for many years, perhaps even up to 16 years. Including sick deer carcasses, internal organs, saliva, urine, feces and deer antler velvet, all can cause transmission. Experiments have also shown that even if prions and clay are mixed, they can remain infectious and survive after being excreted through the digestive tract of birds.
The most frightening thing is that prions are more stable than ordinary proteins, and general physical or chemical methods cannot do anything about it. In the experiment, scientists have placed it in a 120 ~ 130 ° C environment to heat for 4 hours, with ultraviolet radiation, soaked with formaldehyde, can not make it inactive, in addition, it can also effectively fight against proteases, only with high concentrations of phenol, uric acid, etc. can be eliminated, it is really a small strong poison that can not be killed.
Since infected deer have only one way to die, and it is easy to infect other deer, as long as a zombie deer appears in the farm captive deer, all other deer will die. Hill's farm has a total of about 350 white-tailed deer, 387 of which have been sold in the past 6 years, which is where her family's livelihood lies, and Hill thinks it is wrong to kill all the deer, but what can be done? Fortunately, this culling can be subsidized by the government, up to $3,000 per head, and her farm will be the largest number of cullings in history.
Zombie deer disease is spreading in Wisconsin, and 38 of the state's 301 registered deer farms have been infected with zombie deer disease, of which 20 have all been culled. Most frighteningly, this horrific zombie disease also spreads in the state's wild deer herds, and no current technology is capable of stopping this spread.
Why do mammals develop this "zombie" disease that disables the functioning of the brain? The outbreak of mad cow disease in the UK in the late 1980s may be partly responsible. At that time, the meat and bones of eliminated and dead cattle and other animals were powdered, including sick and dead animals, and then this bone meal was fed to healthy cows, resulting in cattle being infected, which in turn infected humans who ate cattle products, and eventually 4 million cows were culled.
Kuru disease, which was endemic in the 1950s among the cannibal tribes of Papua New Guinea, was also more severe among women and children because of the tribe's custom of eating the remains of their loved ones raw, with men eating meat and women and children eating the remainder, including the brain. Later, after the Australian government banned the tribe's cannibalism, Kuru disease slowly disappeared.
Therefore, prions are more likely to appear in cannibalistic environments, which may be because of the long-lasting infectivity and incubation period of prions, strong vitality, and it is easy to penetrate the blood-brain barrier and infect brain tissue.
Once infected, you can only die, and it is a zombie-like death, which is chilling to think.