Quote:
Originally Posted by snas
Bert
A good point you raise. Even smaller than the smallest virus is the prion, one of which causes BSE (Bovine Spongioform Encephalopathy) or mad cow disease. Others include Kreutzfeld Jakob disease in people and also Scrapie in sheep. These "information carrying particles" can hardly be decribed as being alive, and yet they manage to carry information and reproduce themselves. Is this life? or is it not? Some far better biologists than myself are still debating this. 
Stuart |
No they are a very strange form of anything. They are molecules that are similar to common molecules in the brain apart from a mutation. The scary thing is they cannot reproduce but induce 'normal' molecules to shift their conformation into the 'rogue' form. They do not replicate. They just infect.
Nearly all so called brain problems such as alzheimers and many more work this way.
They also have the ability to get through the blood brain barrier.
Do not eat the nervous tissue of ANY animal! Brain, spine etc. Especially your dead relatives!
Bert