Wash: I'm not leaving her side, Mal. Don't ask me again. Mal: I wasn't asking. I was telling.

'Out Of Gas'


Natter 39 and Holding  

Off-topic discussion. Wanna talk about corsets, duct tape, or physics? This is the place. Detailed discussion of any current-season TV must be whitefonted.


§ ita § - Oct 09, 2005 5:49:34 am PDT #4611 of 10002
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

it's that they survived the infection for whatever hugely variable reason

Well, maybe their research was into those reasons, and they narrowed down the variables.


Trudy Booth - Oct 09, 2005 5:58:47 am PDT #4612 of 10002
Greece's financial crisis threatens to take down all of Western civilization - a civilization they themselves founded. A rather tragic irony - which is something they also invented. - Jon Stewart

Well, maybe their research was into those reasons, and they narrowed down the variables.

But even if they did the variables would still be... variable.

Say my great-grandmother survived and her sister died because her sister's lungs were still recovering from an illness the previous year. If this year my sister and I catch an avian flu and we could end up living and dying for the same reasons. Or maybe I like carrots and she hates them and the vitamin A in our systems tips the balance. Or a million other environmental factors that we'd have no way of knowing our individual ancestors experienced.


Lee - Oct 09, 2005 6:03:44 am PDT #4613 of 10002
The feeling you get when your brain finally lets your heart get in its pants.

On the other hand, no amount of trying has gotten me offended by Nilly. Hon, you must have a very simple Yom Kippur. You deserve it, by grace of your niceness.

What ita said.


§ ita § - Oct 09, 2005 6:07:03 am PDT #4614 of 10002
Well not canonically, no, but this is transformative fiction.

But even if they did the variables would still be... variable.

Maybe they're ahead of you on this one, Trudy. They didn't say it was definite, just probable.


Volans - Oct 09, 2005 6:13:17 am PDT #4615 of 10002
move out and draw fire

As I understood the article about the flu, they believe survival depended on a genetic weakness, as the vectors were strange (elderly and infants survived, young adults were wiped out). And it seemed to kill whoever contracted it. The number of people who recovered was miniscule. And it killed so many people that pretty much everyone alive today is a descendant of a flu survivor, so according to their theory we should all be impervious to that strain of flu.

You know the sucky part about these natural disasters? The lines of communication go down, so you have to wait forever to see if your friends and family are alright. After so many of these in the last few years, though, I'm managing to not freak out about my friends in Pakistan. I'll hear when I hear, and I can do no more than think good thoughts until then.


Trudy Booth - Oct 09, 2005 6:14:08 am PDT #4616 of 10002
Greece's financial crisis threatens to take down all of Western civilization - a civilization they themselves founded. A rather tragic irony - which is something they also invented. - Jon Stewart

They most certainly could be ahead of me, but at the moment I don't buy it.

Besides, an wouldn't an innate resistance only be helpful if it were the SAME avian flu? And is that even possible the way the suckers mutate?


Trudy Booth - Oct 09, 2005 6:16:22 am PDT #4617 of 10002
Greece's financial crisis threatens to take down all of Western civilization - a civilization they themselves founded. A rather tragic irony - which is something they also invented. - Jon Stewart

And it seemed to kill whoever contracted it. The number of people who recovered was miniscule

Hmm... I was operating from very different information.

On the article I just saw I thought they said that for every one who died a hundred lived.


Jars - Oct 09, 2005 6:19:39 am PDT #4618 of 10002

Besides, an wouldn't an innate resistance only be helpful if it were the SAME avian flu? And is that even possible the way the suckers mutate?

Maybe it's like a natural vaccination. Don't mothers pass their immunities onto children? Or is that something I made up?

So when a person has already produced the antibodies, their bodies and their children's bodies retain the knowledge of how to produce antibodies for that strain and all its brethren. Maybe.


Volans - Oct 09, 2005 6:31:00 am PDT #4619 of 10002
move out and draw fire

I was wrong - I'm looking for the article I read (haven't found it yet), but did determine that the morbidity rate was low. So yeah, I take that back.

Besides, an wouldn't an innate resistance only be helpful if it were the SAME avian flu? And is that even possible the way the suckers mutate?

Maybe, is apparently the answer. There may be a clue in the Spanish flu to help with immunity against the avian flu we've got now.


Sheryl - Oct 09, 2005 6:34:13 am PDT #4620 of 10002
Fandom means never having to say "But where would I wear that?"

Timelies all!

Nilly, you have done nothing to offend me in this past year(nor in any year that I have known you).

Along those lines, if I have done or said anything that offended anyone here, I hope they can forgive me.(Nilly said it so much better than I could, but I hope my words are adequate enough)