reply to post by apacheman
Apacheman- I tend to agree with you, in re: Ebola. It's a jungle virus that breaks down rapidly in UV- it does well in multiply-canopied forests.
As well, the micrography out of Iowa looks nothing like filovirus to me- however, it is certainly possible, OP, that the SNP mutation from glutamine
to lysine changed the thermodynamics of the protein capsids enough to change their tertiary shape under electron miroscopy.
I worry less about tropical diseases and more about an influenza (released accidentally, or on purpose, from a lab), or one that has circled the globe
for 5 years and in so doing has gained virulence, ease of contagious transmission, etc., and then, once assembled through natural viral selection, has
acquired a mutation that is tiny- a SNP- but one that allows ease of entrance to epithelial cells in its host. Clearly, a virus that can infect
quickly, in order to reproduce is going to be more successful, thus it will replicate in its host to continue the entropic passage of it. The
mutation is icing on the cake- glycine is essentially a "WELCOME!" sign to epithelial cells- and in inducing viral, rather than bacterial pneumonia,
this bugger is living large, as it takes patient days to die from ARDS- no azythromycin will wipe out that pneumonia. So every time the pt coughs,
the virus finds new hosts.
One can't help, ultimately, admiring the simplicity of the virus, and the brilliance of Natural Selection; only those viri with the ability to mutate
survived. We should all look a little more closely......
Suffice having said all of that, I certainly wish nothing but good health and luck to our Norwegian, Ukrainian, Russian, Chinese, S. American friends
(and anyone else who has been broad-sided by this one.
Peace and good health to all-
CultureD