this post was submitted on 23 Oct 2024
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Another "fun" fact: it's one of the biggest killers in the third world, especially of small children, and at some point there was a diarrhea magazine as a result.
I can't believe tetanus got left out here. It's a common soil bacteria like botulism, but has the opposite effect if it gets in you. It makes all your muscles forcibly contract and cramp up until you die.
Botulism is really easy to get if you can food wrong, because it's the one abundant bacteria that will survive limitless time at 100C. (To can vulnerable things properly, you use high pressures to make the water get hotter before it begins to boil, and cools down as a result)
These are nasty, but I still find rabies the most scary
If we're branching out into possible non-life, prion diseases like mad cow or kuru have a creep factor. You could be terminally infected already, as you read this, and not know until you start getting clumsy and confused years from now. Also kuru is spread by long-term habitual brain cannibalism, so that's culturally uncomfortable.
Prions - yeah, they're definitly creepy. They're also hard to destroy, so they can accumulate in nature over time.
And while we're at it, I think Naegleria fowleri, the brain eating amoeba that lives in warm water and gets in through your nose should get an honorable mention!
Thank the decomposers, I guess.
Hey, I'm clumsy and confused already!
Me too, bro. That's a mood.
This was not a good thread to read before bed
Good to know Lemmy is addictive enough to bait people into giving themselves nightmares, I guess.
Your immune system gives some protection against botulinum, but it doesn't fully develop until about six months to a year old. This is why you should never ever feed honey to an infant. Bees will occasionally end up on the ground, picking up botulinum. There's a very small chance of a trace of the bug ending up in honey. It's not enough to harm an older child or adult, but even thst tiny amount can kill a baby.
https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/botulism
Yeah, it will basically colonise their intestines instead of the bacteria that are supposed to, and just poison them continuously. It's especially a concern if you live near a construction site just because of all the dirt being moved around and exposed to air, IIRC.