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)
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.
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.
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.
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!
Well… if it means I’d die of lethal diarrhea immediately after being reincarnated, I guess it could be worse! Like having to live 6-7 decades with the knowledge that I may or may not, at one point, contract lethal diarrhea, and that I’ll just keep on coming back to this particular reverse-roulette wheel over and over and over again, being forced to play the odds on an infinite canvas of probabilities. You know what they say, the anxiety’s always worse than the thing-in-itself!
“Lethal amounts of diarrhea” has now entered second place on my Worst Nightmares list. Thanks for that…
Rule 34
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)
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.
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.
You can’t leave us hanging, what’s 1st place on your list?
Reincarnation, which has now been reinforced by no. 2 (pun not intended, but welcomed).
Well, how about reincarnation coupled with eternal lethal diarrhea?
Well… if it means I’d die of lethal diarrhea immediately after being reincarnated, I guess it could be worse! Like having to live 6-7 decades with the knowledge that I may or may not, at one point, contract lethal diarrhea, and that I’ll just keep on coming back to this particular reverse-roulette wheel over and over and over again, being forced to play the odds on an infinite canvas of probabilities. You know what they say, the anxiety’s always worse than the thing-in-itself!