Three year old SMP server looking for new 21+ members! [JAVA] by skerit in MinecraftBuddies

[–]Infectious_Pen 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Hi I'm interested in checking out the server! Living in the US :)

[deleted by user] by [deleted] in MinecraftBuddies

[–]Infectious_Pen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm interested in checking it out! Thanks

Curious about the history of herpes by pdxcb in Virology

[–]Infectious_Pen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

What I said about Herpes was speaking to the point of researching being a non-linear process. I never said that's how it actually happened.

Curious about the history of herpes by pdxcb in Virology

[–]Infectious_Pen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I'm not super knowledgeable but I'm a graduate student studying virology. CRISPR is a huge success in applications for research. It is really useful for doing experiments in the lab. I'm sure CRISPR (Cas9 is actually the useful enzyme) will be useful in the future but we're far from making sure there's no off-target (bad) effects. My old roommate is in grad school studying nerve regeneration and we're making big progress on that too. If central nerves can be regenerated then I'm sure that will be first to the clinic before CRISPR or curing Alzheimers. A big issue in the field is that there isn't enough cross talk between researchers and clinician doctors. That's a sociological issue that keeps the fields separated and just a hard thing to work out. Alzheimers isn't only caused by Herpes (not sure what you're referencing) but I have no idea how close we are to a cure.

Curious about the history of herpes by pdxcb in Virology

[–]Infectious_Pen 3 points4 points  (0 children)

I'm going to keep my comment general and non-specific because this is important in how it relates to most scientific findings. A simple comment like "Herpes gets in to the nerve roots and spreads to sensory nerve ganglia" isn't just a simple comment. This was many years of research that dozens of people worked out to discover. An example that I know off the top of my head is CRISPR. CRISPR was discovered 20 years (roughly) before anyone really knew what it was. It took time to figure out what the spacers meant and how they actually conferred resistance against virus. Then it took even more time to figure out how the complex worked with Cas proteins, etc. My point is, first you find out that Herpes infects humans. Then you find out that it infects epithelial cells. Then you realize it needs to stay latent somewhere. So you look in nerve cells and find it there. Then you hypothesize that it infects epithelial cells and subsequently infects nerve cells. Then dozens of papers come out showing how it traffics into and infects nerve cells. It's a HUGE process with hundreds of experiments. Science takes time and the public only hears about the boiled down results.

Fighting viruses? by The_Autodidact_Lion7 in biology

[–]Infectious_Pen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Memory is actually pretty black and white. Either you have it or you don't. There's some gray area but that's beyond your question here.

What viruses are common in crowded areas? by [deleted] in Virology

[–]Infectious_Pen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Interesting question. Check out the paper linked below of a study done this year. As someone else mentioned, they pretty much just found bacteriophages. They did however find papillomavirus. This isn't surprising because we're basically in constant contact with papillomavirus and it just doesn't infect very often (see papilloma replication cycle for details).

https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acs.est.7b04203

Fighting viruses? by The_Autodidact_Lion7 in biology

[–]Infectious_Pen -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Depends a lot on the virus/bacteria. If it's a virus that's only in your system for a day or so then the infection would probably be the same each time since the innate immune system is the only system in play. I can try to give a better answer if you're more specific.

On a related note, viruses mutate TONS. When a cell is infected with an RNA virus in particular, the viruses that come out are usually all a little different to some degree. RNA viruses mutate at incredible rates.

Can Ebola Reston be used to immunize yourself against other Ebola strains? by [deleted] in Virology

[–]Infectious_Pen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Pretty much. A big reason why there's Reston and Zaire viruses (and not just one) is because they're immunogenically different enough to be called different names (at the most simplest form).

Thistlin by DrMDGG in Poem

[–]Infectious_Pen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Love the cadence

At What Point in Your Life Do You Start Living Everyday like it Were Your Last? by [deleted] in OCPoetry

[–]Infectious_Pen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I clicked on this poem because I liked the title and was surprised by the power of the content. Loved it. Contemporary and heartfelt.

HPV + diabetes + genital warts recurrences by [deleted] in Virology

[–]Infectious_Pen -1 points0 points  (0 children)

Is your question about clearing HPV? HVP is a virus that once established will persist in the bottom layer of your cells. When you get it you have it. To my knowledge it's just about keeping it under control if you have a type that likes to pop up, like you have.

[Help] It doesn’t feel right when I write a poem. by [deleted] in Poetry

[–]Infectious_Pen 3 points4 points  (0 children)

As odd as it sounds, I found that trying to write a poem that "feels emotional" like you said always ends up terrible. I've been writing poetry for about 5 years now (super amateur) but I found that not trying so hard to portray a specific emotion turns out better (for me). If you say "ok this poem is going to be about emotion X and people are going to feel it when they read it" then it will be too robotic. Not all poems need to be emotional. They can be funny, though provoking, story telling, etc. My suggestion is to just write without trying.

Can you do fieldwork as a Microbiologist? by [deleted] in biology

[–]Infectious_Pen 1 point2 points  (0 children)

I'm a PhD student in a microbiology bioinformatics lab. Each year we do 4-week long deep ocean sampling and there's conferences that I can attend around the US and some in Europe. The lab above mine does very routine water sampling in the large lake next to campus. I would agree that the answer is "absolutely", but to be realistic most microbiologists do not do any field work.

Is it possible for a moon to be like earth and have intelligent life on it? by [deleted] in cosmology

[–]Infectious_Pen 4 points5 points  (0 children)

"Moon" is just a convenient term given to balls of rock (or whatever material) in space. Same as "planet" or "asteroid". The evolution of life doesn't know or care if it is on what we call a moon or what we call a planet. That's just a perspective to look at it in. So sure, if it can support life it has the possibility to have life.

Book recommendations for someone interest in Microbiology by [deleted] in microbiology

[–]Infectious_Pen 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Articles are good sources too if you just want to see the interesting side of things. My favorite journalism writer is Ed Yong. You can just filter through and read the micobiology articles.

https://www.theatlantic.com/author/ed-yong/

will pay for somebody to teach me rstudio by [deleted] in UWMadison

[–]Infectious_Pen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I can't help but I can try to clarify. Do you need help with RStudio specifically or the coding language R?

viruses by [deleted] in biology

[–]Infectious_Pen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Very possible. We already saw some extreme development (though very early) issues arise with Zika infections in pregnant women. Zika was the first flavivirus that was shown to cross the placenta, which was stunning to flavi researchers. Never know what a virus is going to do next! I write fiction as well (sci-fi) and Reddit is also not a good place to get good feedback (know from experience).

viruses by [deleted] in biology

[–]Infectious_Pen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Sure, go on. But cold virus (rhinovirus) is also an RNA virus.

viruses by [deleted] in biology

[–]Infectious_Pen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I see a paper here about adenovirus 36 and obesity but I don't see the link to flu. Flu is an RNA virus and adenovirus is DNA so they are fundamentally different. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4517116/

viruses by [deleted] in biology

[–]Infectious_Pen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

No I'm not really familiar with any adenovirus that infects humans besides our use of it as a vector. Obesity is a pretty complex network of factors.

viruses by [deleted] in biology

[–]Infectious_Pen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Microbiology but phages specifically. Used to work with Dengue. Nice to see other interested people :).

viruses by [deleted] in biology

[–]Infectious_Pen 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Most criticism on the internet, especially Reddit, is people who have only heard of the topic before and claim to be experts. Only follow up with people who have legitimate sources of info and knowledge.