2026-05-06 03:54 UTC
@datum
Wow! Your first little paragraph there made me think you were documenting some woo woo fringe scam thing
When it became clear this was real, I had to go back and reread from the start
Replies (1)
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@jpetazzo@hachyderm.io 2026-05-06 09:16
@NilaJones @datum same! If I hadn't heard a podcast about prions* recently, I'd have thought that was bonkers 😅 *If I understood correctly, prions (or some prions ?) have the same composition as some normal proteins but a different spatial shape. When the prion bumps into that protein, it changes the configuration of that protein to be the same as the prion. Rinse, repeat, chain reaction, and suddenly things get real bad (because of course the prion can't do whatever function that protein was supposed to do in the organism).