Re: starship-design: Re: Bugs again

[KellySt@aol.com]

In a message dated 10/13/98 4:16:40 PM, Shealiak@XS4ALL.nl wrote:

>Andrew wrote:
>
>>It's clearly in the virus' worst interests to kill it's host off, which is
>>why most deadly virii or bateria are mutations of "nuisance" diseases,
>>which rarely killed, merely incapacitate/annoy.
>
>Of course this balance has evolved over milions of years. On another planet
>we are likely to be totally out of balance.

And the microbes will flare and whipe us out, bad for both them and us.
(We're just not good hosts.)

      ;)


>>The other sort of deadly virii are the sort I mentioned earlier, which come
>>from other creatures.  These are badly adapted to living in their new
>>hosts, and some tend to cause massive damage because of this.  So if the
>>alien diseases were -just- compatable enough (eg, used to living in blood
>>cells of a certain creature) then they would most probably prove fatal for
>us.
>
>But aren't we more hostile to these bacteria, as they are to us? Afterall,
>they are strange to us, and we are strange to them. Except we have a
>numerical advantage: our body has many many more cells to attack.
>I've asked a similar question before. Who's likely to be attacked most
>badly, the small critter in our big alien body, or we?

They would have te edge.  As a multi-celular organism that has lots of
simbiotic microbes that it needs to leave alone.  Our bodies can't take as
agressive a responce as would be nessisary.  The attacking microbes however
only need to find something in our bodies that they could feed on.  Far
simpler task.


>Timothy

Kelly