I was looking for more than just a Google answer, for relative abundance it would seem there are massive deposits where it is found but yes, absolutely, there is very little NaCl in the universe.

We don't really know, a lot of mammals are also highly resistant to prions so it's thought it's an issue of susceptibility.

Prions only affect mammals. Cows also don't partake in cannibalism, we grind up cattle into protein powder and mix it into cow feed as a supplement. All mammals can get sporadic cases so there are laws about feeding animals to their same species because while rare, there's a risk.

Kuru is absolutely caused by cannibalism. It started off because sporadic CJD happens in about 1/1m people and because of ritualistic eating of the brain and spinal cord it became transmissible variant CJD.

About 90% of CJD is sporadic.

Cannibalism is just a form of transmission, prions self propagate by causing misfolding of healthy PrPs which accumulate into amyloids and cause disease.

Omicron isn't a single serotype (immune recognition), it's actually a ton:

https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#variant-proportions

So this isn't waning immunity, it's serotype emergence that escapes immunity.

ELI5: we get a great pitcher versus the first batter but they keep changing batters as we strike them out until eventually our pitcher is terrible. Then we bring in a new pitcher to match against the best batter we've seen so far and it starts all over again.

We really don't know much about serotype specific waning immunity, it's likely we'll have robust long term immunity from the earlier variants like alpha and delta.

The whole issue of "re-infections" is that new serotypes keep emerging not that people keep getting reinfected with the same variant.

If anyone is interested in infectious disease news: r/ID_News

It's a long, progressive disease, the usual first visible symptom is weight loss because by that point of brain damage the deer drastically reduces eating and drinking. More subtle symptoms would have likely been around for much longer.

And that rapid climate warming doesn't result in tropics, it results in deserts.

Right, I suppose you don't think there's an anthropocene mass extinction?

Read this:

https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2023989118

Water, pollution, pesticides, encroachment/habitat loss, extreme weather....

A few things against a stable and prosperous environment.

Do you have any references or is this just a lay opinion? From what I've seen, not my field, it would seem fairly dire.

Given the immune environment of bats, it's thought that most hemorrhagic fevers are evolved from them.

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-03128-0

There has certainly been a lot of press around Kitum cave but there are earlier recorded outbreaks and the pinpoint origin really can't be said definitively since viral studies were pretty cutting edge 50 years ago.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4166725/

https://academic.oup.com/trstmh/article/109/6/366/2461644

Of course, just saying it likely originated from bats doesn't really give the whole current story, there are many mammals that are thought to act as reservoir species so the cat is out of the bag...

https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.1172705?url_ver=Z39.88-2003

https://journals.plos.org/plosntds/article?id=10.1371/journal.pntd.0004815

Took a little digging but Dorothy Tovar provided some great bat facts in this COVID AMA:

https://www.reddit.com/r/science/comments/ezstsw/science_discussion_series_the_novel_coronavirus/

Most studies just use ART usage as a proxy for viral load but it makes a huge (>90%) risk reduction.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanhiv/article/PIIS2352-3018(22)00289-2/fulltext

https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/hiv.12397

https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2019.00401/full

A few things to clear up:

HIV has a strong tropism for CD4+ cells so provirus integration within egg and sperm cells is fairly rare but can occur preconception:

The Integrated HIV-1 Provirus in Patient Sperm Chromosome and Its Transfer into the Early Embryo by Fertilization

When it comes to perinatal HIV infection, there are many other available modes of vertical transmission: breastfeeding, placenta, etc.... Children that don't receive ART typically don't live past 2 years old:

Prevention of vertical transmission of HIV-1 in resource-limited settings

So this more traditional transmission method can obfuscate the origin of HIV. But even then, the risk for vertical transmission is between 15% and 45%.

All this means that there are indeed plenty of mechanisms to transmit HIV perinatally but that doesn't mean it is an absolute certainty .

If anyone is interested in infectious disease news: r/ID_News

With no context, no one can really answer this question without just referring you to a textbook.

Immune systems are not "strong" in the sense of a muscle. Good immunity is a balanced response to appropriate stimulation. Any over-response typically either results in morbidity, e.g. eczema, Crohn's, or mortality, e.g. cytokine storm.

It's thought Delta evolved within an immunocompromised person(s) and Omicron was likely a spillover from humans to mice and back to humans.

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsb2104756

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1673852721003738

It's also good to remember that coronaviruses aren't just some singular static thing. SARS-CoV-2, for instance, is highly mutable. So a better question would be variant competition because as far as viral species go, you can definitely be co-infected.

During the pandemic, yes, SARS-CoV-2 had much higher incidence:

https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/testing/individual-states

But the normally circulating coronaviruses as we call them are definitely still around and currently making their annual peak right now:

https://www.cdc.gov/surveillance/nrevss/coronavirus/natl-trends.html

The usual disclaimer of course that many viruses make up the "common cold".

In case anyone likes infectious disease news: r/ID_News

It's good to remember that vaccination coverage is just as important as efficacy.

Abstract

The directionality between vaccine hesitancy and COVID-19 vaccine side-effects has not been hitherto examined. We hypothesized a nocebo effect, whereby vaccine hesitancy towards the second Pfizer vaccination dose predicts subsequent side-effects for a booster dose, beyond other effects. We expected these nocebo effects to be driven by (mis)information in males and prior experience in females.

A representative sample of older adults (n = 756, mean age = 68.9 ± 3.43) were questioned in a typical cross-lagged design (wave 1 following a second Pfizer dose, wave 2 after their booster). As hypothesized, earlier vaccine hesitancy predicted subsequent booster side-effects for females (β = 0.10 p = 0.025, f 2 = 0.02) and males (β = 0.34, p < 0.001, f 2 = 0.16); effects were stronger in males (χ2Δ (1) = 4.34, p = 0.03). The (W1-to-W2) side-effect autoregression was stronger in females (β = .34, p < 0.001; males β = 0.18, p < 0.001), χ2Δ (1) = 26.86, p < 0.001.

Results show that a quantifiable and meaningful portion of COVID-19 vaccine side-effects is predicted by vaccine hesitancy, demonstrating that side-effects comprise a psychosomatic nocebo component in vaccinated individuals. The data reveal distinct risk levels for future side-effects, suggesting the need to tailor public health messaging.

Using music to handle stress.

Key Points

Question Was listening to music in daily life during COVID-19 pandemic restrictions associated with lower stress and better mood?

Findings In this cohort study of 711 adults, listening to music was significantly associated with lower levels of stress. Moreover, music listening was significantly associated with improved mood, particularly for those with elevated chronic stress during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Meaning These findings suggest that listening to music in daily life, a simple intervention, may support beneficial health outcomes during COVID-19 pandemic restrictions.

Abstract

Importance Music listening is a universal human experience. People of all ages and cultures often use music to reduce stress and improve mood, particularly in times of crisis. However, ecologically valid research examining the real-time association of music listening with stress and mood during the COVID-19 pandemic is scarce.

Objective To explore the associations between listening to music and the perceptions of stress and mood using ecological momentary assessment during the COVID-19 lockdown period.

Design, Setting, and Participants In this cohort study conducted between April 1 and May 8, 2020, adults from the general population residing in Austria and Italy were prompted by an app on their smartphone to report data 5 times per day across 7 consecutive days. Participants provided data on their real-time and real-life experiences in their natural environment while strict lockdown measures were in place. Data analysis was performed from March 2021 to February 2022.

Exposures Data on self-reported music listening were recorded by means of mobile-based assessments. Perceived chronic stress was assessed once at the end of the study.

Main Outcomes and Measures Perceptions of momentary stress and mood were measured using visual analog scales (score range, 0-100, where 0 indicates not at all and 100 indicates very much) by means of mobile app–based assessments.

Results The final sample comprised 711 participants (497 women [69.9%]; median age, 27.0 years [IQR, 24.0-36.0 years]). Participants provided a total of 19 641 data points, including 4677 music listening reports. Music listening was prospectively associated with lower momentary stress levels (β, −0.92; 95% CI, −1.80 to −0.04; P = .04) and improvements in mood valence (β, 1.90; 95% CI, 1.17-2.63; P < .001), especially if the music was perceived as happy. Individuals with higher levels of chronic stress reported improved mood valence after music listening (β, 0.12; 95% CI, 0.02-0.22; P = .02).

Conclusions and Relevance The present findings suggest that music listening may be a means to modulate stress and mood during psychologically demanding periods. Individuals experiencing heightened momentary and/or chronic stress because of the challenges brought about by COVID-19 pandemic–related restrictions might consider music as an easily accessible tool for the management of stress and mood in daily life.

Study finds that it is unlikely that SARS-COV-2 circulated widely in humans prior to November 2019 by u/PHealthy

Sometimes different bacteria get close together and can exchange little bits of DNA. These little bits can sometimes contain antibiotic resistance genes. The researchers found a bacteria in sewage with these genes that we don't usually screen for this type of resistance gene. The implication then is that these genes are probably more widespread than we think. (But we all knew that anyway, good to have evidence though) by u/PHealthy