'Bon apetite' was Re: [extropy-chat] wretched journalists strikeagain

[Brett Paatsch]

Acy Stapp wrote:

> On 12/12/05, Brett Paatsch <bpaatsch at bigpond.net.au> wrote:
>> I'm curious and slightly sceptical about that "tasting yucky". I think we
>> have touched on this before here. I wonder if there is in fact any good
>> data or science behind it. I understand that tribes that ate the brains 
>> of
>> their recently dearly departed family tended to get nasty prion type
>> diseases perhaps like 'mad cows' or 'cruishanks jakobs' but I'm inclined
>> to think they probably just didn't cook 'the meal' very well and that is
>> generally a dangerous practice regardless of what form of  animal one
>> eats.

> Spongiform encephalies like mad cow or Creutzfeldt Jacobs disease are
> not affected by cooking.

I'm still reading about this, interesting stuff these prions, but it looks 
like
you are right. Also looks like I was making a bigger claim that I thought
when I said they'd contain nucleotides. Freaky thing is that they may not
involve nucleic acids - they may just be infectious *proteins*.

Almost scary how much biology we still don't know.

Brett Paatsch