1
Διασκέδαση / κακε κουρου
« στις: 25/05/08, 23:07 »
Kuru
The average person's chances of contracting or developing Kuru are virtually nonexistent. To catch this fatal neurological disease, you'd have to travel to a remote region in the highlands of New Guinea, find one of the few remaining carriers of the disease, and eat his or her brains.
Kuru belongs to a rare breed of disorders caused by prions. These abnormal proteins induce irregular protein folding in brain cells. This construction technique leads to flawed brain tissue, resulting in progressive and incurable brain damage. The word kuru means "laughing disease," so named because scientists observed fits of hysterical laughing by those affected.
Similar prion conditions, such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (the human variant of mad cow disease) are more common. Kuru only occurs in New Guinea's isolated Fore tribe. The condition first emerged in the 1950s and quickly decimated whole villages. Scientists quickly discovered that the only way to acquire the disease was through the consumption of contaminated brain tissue. The Fore followed cannibalistic funeral rites that required them to cook and eat the dead -- a practice they believed passed on spiritual aspects of the dead to the living. Closely related females and children consumed the brain and contracted the deadly kuru.
When Westerners abolished cannibalism in the region, new incidents of the disease disappeared nearly overnight. Scientists haven't discovered new cases of kuru in any Fore tribesperson born after the late 1950s.
The average person's chances of contracting or developing Kuru are virtually nonexistent. To catch this fatal neurological disease, you'd have to travel to a remote region in the highlands of New Guinea, find one of the few remaining carriers of the disease, and eat his or her brains.
Kuru belongs to a rare breed of disorders caused by prions. These abnormal proteins induce irregular protein folding in brain cells. This construction technique leads to flawed brain tissue, resulting in progressive and incurable brain damage. The word kuru means "laughing disease," so named because scientists observed fits of hysterical laughing by those affected.
Similar prion conditions, such as Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (the human variant of mad cow disease) are more common. Kuru only occurs in New Guinea's isolated Fore tribe. The condition first emerged in the 1950s and quickly decimated whole villages. Scientists quickly discovered that the only way to acquire the disease was through the consumption of contaminated brain tissue. The Fore followed cannibalistic funeral rites that required them to cook and eat the dead -- a practice they believed passed on spiritual aspects of the dead to the living. Closely related females and children consumed the brain and contracted the deadly kuru.
When Westerners abolished cannibalism in the region, new incidents of the disease disappeared nearly overnight. Scientists haven't discovered new cases of kuru in any Fore tribesperson born after the late 1950s.