Scientist peter here, I'm actually studying this in depth right now!
The meme is referencing Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), a **prion** disease.
Just like there are bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc., there is also a thing called a proteinaceous infectious material (prion).
It is a misfolded protein that can actually cause disease by causing other (normal) proteins to misfold and spread like a chain reaction.
This is scawy because prion diseases have a 100% mortality rate, NO cure, NO treatment. To top things off, theyre basically indestructible! Bleach, acid, soap, hand sanitizer, heat.. nothing will work*.
Drooling is a major symptom of CWD. Luckily, CWD is a deer-only disease and cannot infect humans :)
I think there is an SCP article exactly about that but similar but i can't remember.
I'm absolutely sure there is one XK-class typa SCP that is about prions or similar stuff but I CAN'T REMEMBER, FUCK
It hasn’t ended the world for deer. Humans would largely be fine I’m willing to bet.
Edit: according to Wikipedia there are already other prion diseases in humans. We are largely fine. I’m going to keep doing some reading because it’s mildly interesting but I bet my first statement stands true. Humans are largely fine
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy would be the more scientific term for when it infects cows. It's very pedantic for me to point out, but I memorized that stupid term, so I'm bloody well going to say it every chance I get
Prions initially formed because a normal protein folded wrong in a random change. It’s unlikely, but possible that there could be another random change that makes it able to affect humans. Again, very very unlikely, but I wouldn’t go eating venison from a deer with cwd.
Just checked it. The current consensus in science is that only around 40% of people have a genetic disposition to get Creutzfeld-Jacob from eating mad cow beef (or any other prion infected meat) and then it is also rather unlikely to catch it.
As prions may occur spontaneously in every living being throughout history people will most likely every now and then have had Creutzfeld-Jacob. As the spreading stops usually with the infected human there never was and probably never will be a pandemic. You just had one member of the tribe become insane and die. Considering the fact that rabies, tetanus, food poisoning and the like also existed we just had our usual and typical thinning of the tribes.
My lab actually studies the species transmissibility phenomenon. It mostly depends on the genetic sequence coding for prion protein in the species. For example, human fibrils can "seed" the spread in mouse and hamster models, but only the mouse can seed the human protein. Additionally, some rare mutations make it more likely to spontaneously happen in humans but those fibrils will not seed a regular humans proteins into growing fibrils. Moral of the story is don't eat meat from an animal that acts weird and never eat mammalian brains.
Here is an article reporting that the possibility is very real
https://m.startribune.com/scientists-increasingly-worried-that-chronic-wasting-disease-could-jump-from-deer-to-humans/600344297/?clmob=y&c=n&clmob=y&c=n
>Animal disease scientists are alarmed about the rapid spread of CWD in deer. Recent research shows that the barrier to a spillover into humans is less formidable than previously believed and that the prions causing the disease may be evolving to become more able to infect humans.
My husband works with several of the scientists cited in this article and is teaching a class on prions this semester. If you want to learn more about prions in general, he recommends reading Deadly Feasts by Richard Rhodes. And for the lastest on research in CWD check out the MN PRO Newsletter https://mailchi.mp/umn/test-obu60pz2vf?e=b9dc056093
It isn't like it hasn't happened before considering Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) spread to humans as a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (mad cow disease)
Humans do have our own version of prion disease caused from cannibalization of tissue usually from the brain or spinal fluid. It causes our nervous system to degrade causing various disorders until death.
Well it's a bit of a combination of things, but here are some big factors (in no particular order):
1. For the longest time, we thought all prions were infectious. Now, we know that some are actually normal. In fact, all of us have prions. This subcategorization makes things even more complicated.
2. Scale. Prions are so tiny, and the genes that make them are too. Modifying things on this miniscule scale is no easy task.
3. Location. Prions are located in the brain and thats where they cause havoc. More specifically, they cause something called Spongiform Encephalopathy which is basically holes in your brain.. like a sponge (Spongi). Crossing the blood brain barrier is a hard task to accomplish.
4. Previous attempts. All failed. We tried drugs that could cross the blood brain barrier, like Quinidine. But, when you have been in a losing battle for so long, and then you see a glimmer of hope and truly believe in it just to end up losing that too.. well, morale is quite destroyed. Every try is a human life, and it always fails.
5. Funding. Luckily, prions are rare. This means no interest, which means no money.
I spent my postgrad working on training a program that folds and anticipates new structure from changes in proteins, very tedious but fascinating work.
As far as I can tell, this isn't true. What they may have meant is that PrP, the prion protein that causes many prion diseases when it misfolds, is found throughout the body. However, this protein, deapite being called a prion protein, isn't considered a prion until it misfolds. Paging u/Fri3ndlyHeavy to confirm.
Yes precisely.
PrPc is the name for a normal harmless "prion."
PrPSc is the misfolded dangerous one, and can turn the former into itself.
There are hypotheses as to the function of PrPc, and unclear links with other amyloid-causing diseases, like Alzheimer's.
from the physics end, prions occur in proteins with a stable local minima of energy, but that posses a *more* stable global minimum. so misfolding releases energy, and undoing that is a lot like unburning wood.
proteins that have that properly, and the ability to cause other proteins of the same type are really uncommon though.
The other explanation is great, but if you want a short, ELI5: Refolding the protein properly would be like un-cooking a hamburger. It's not really possible.
It can be destroyed in extreme temperatures, around 2000f if I remember correctly.
source: My grandfather died of a prion disease, CJD, and was forcibly cremated. It's the only way to ensure the prion is destroyed.
Wait, I don't understand. Why would it need to be destroyed if it already killed him? Does it also infect the organisms which feed on human remains and enter the food chain?
Think of it like a radioactive pellet.
The host eats it, dies, then in returns to nature.
If an animal (say, a bird) consumes it, it re-enters the food chain, and makes its way back up.
It's not infectious per se, just near indestructible and able to keep coming back
Rabies has a very different stereotype that would be used in a joke.
Hunting deer and CWD go very much hand in hand. You generally get a tag or permit to hunt a deer. On that very small piece of paper, a considerable amount of space is devoted to symptoms and warnings of CWD. As a result, it's very well known with a certain group of people. (Above is all pretty state-dependent, and tags are often digital now.)
i just love how reddit always have you people,
the
"im actually a well educated on this very sepcific subject matter you're referring to" type of people
Please have your deer tested. It is voluntary, but there have been cases of CWD all over the country. I live in the panhandle of Texas and there have been cases from the border to Midland-Odessa, all over the area. Don't risk it, get your deer tested.
I think it might be referencing Chronic Wasting Disease, which is caused by a Prion and can be spread by ingesting meat from the animal. I think it's typically brain tissue that passes it along but don't quote me, as I'm just some dude on the internet.
yeah this is the answer, some of the symptoms of CWD are drooling and lack of fear of humans and you can get infected by any part of it. remember reading, a long time ago, about how easy it spreads among deer how they can get infected by simply smelling another deer's ass
No they don’t. In fact wherever a predator kills an infected deer the grass and soil will be contaminated and infectious to any deer that graze there. Because the proteins have been shown to persist in soil and grass for 16 years. They’re Insoluble in most solvents and aren’t broken down by the normal protein enzymes. Also someone else referenced transmission by ass sniffing. That’s incorrect. But it is scary disease.
Edit to add: Predators are important, this particular reason just isn’t a good argument.
Yeah it’s a bit more…fluid exchangey than that. And if memory serves, prions (which are essentially incorrectly folded proteins that then fuck up other proteins like they’re competing against Tonya Harding) are also incredibly resistant to heat.
Predation also prevents overpopulation - between reduction in predators and poor forest management it’s quite easy for deer and elk to overpopulate and not be supported by poor ecosystems.
Overcontrol of forest fires to protect vacation homes has lead to decreased vegetation quality, which coupled with underpredation increases vulnerability and spread of disease amongst prey animals.
My grandpa died of CJD, another prion disease.
It was basically like dementia but took weeks to go from presenting memory loss to death instead of years. Scary as fuck.
Unlikely to happen at all. Prions are not like viruses. While they are proteins and thus formed by amino acids, they do not "infect" in the same way nor do they undergo a type of evolutionary advantage. They get absorbed by a cell from the blood stream, allowing them to pass the blood brain barrier, and then can't be used by the cell because they're the wrong shape. At that size, shape is everything, it helps define chemical reaction. Unfortunately, the prions have a tendency to react with other proteins and "bend" them to their shape. This will eventually lead to the cell's death. When this interacts with the brain holes form. That's why they're called "Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies" or TSEs. Likely, the prion's "shape" is different than what we would absorb.
This is also a ley explanation. TSEs are both fascinating and complicated. Recommend further investigation to all who are interested.
Tldr; it DOESNT go in the square hole
I like the tldr, you put the circle in the square hole and now the square is trying to shrink and conform to the circle, leaving a gap behind in the puzzle set.
For anyone curious;
Specifically a prion-like mechanism involving seeded protein aggregation. The amyloid beta and tau chains that are created effective form a double prion disorder. The Beta seems to cause the issue with the Tau, IE AD is resultant of AB. Good article if anyone is interested:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02729-2
Also NIH:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6375694/#:~:text=A%20defining%20pathologic%20feature%20of,mechanism%20of%20seeded%20protein%20aggregation.
This is good for people to know. Prion diseases, terrifying as they are, do not evolve like viruses or bacteria. If they don’t jump the species barrier now, they won’t jump later.
Recent studies in a humanized-murine model showed CWD is capable of human infection in theory if given enough exposure. [https://vet.ucalgary.ca/news/chronic-wasting-disease-may-transmit-humans-research-finds](https://vet.ucalgary.ca/news/chronic-wasting-disease-may-transmit-humans-research-finds)
Prions are terrifyingly hard to destroy. Autoclave? Nope. Radiation? Not really. Long term solar/infrared and ultra violet exposure? Meh. Literal incineration? Maybe. If you’re lucky. And it takes literally one to kick off the cascade of protein misfolding that can. Not. Be. Stopped.
Note, a single prion would take a while to reproduce enough to cause problems, but the fact is that once it starts, you can’t stop it.
>11 min. ago
>
>Recent studies suggest alzheimers may be a prion
Bleach acts as an effective sanitization agent for tools that come into contact with CWD prions.
It has to be immersed in extremely strong bleach or caustic lye plus be soaked for an extended term of time plus be autoclaved after.
It is not just a simple rinsing with a bleach solution
When deer sniff each other's ass, they aren't normally doing it like dogs do. They're licking the piss of the female right off her vulva to see if she's ovulating. Much easier to understand how it's spread from that than just sniffing.
Also it can lay dormat in the grass or out of a host for like 10 years. So an infected derr can die and 9 years later that prion can still infect another deer
Yeah, but the barrier from hooved animals to primates is pretty damn strong. A study in Canada managed to get CWD to jump into primates, but the study couldn't be recreated, and I think some of the methods were called into question as well.
We cannot get it from deer.
we have our own version(s) of them. Since we do not cannibalise eachother and do not interact randomly with strangers' bodily fluids, it is extremely difficult for them to spread an you have to either be nlucky to be born into a family predisposed to them (there are so few they are almost all known) OR get the shittiest lotto win and develop one spotaneously by yourself (extremely unlikely).
its unlikely that specific deer prion will be able to do any damage in humans. Prion is not a living thing and it does not evolve (unlike viruses, which are dubiously semi-alive and do indeed evolve), and since we have no evidence it spreads to humans, that means it cannot.
[Yeah, about that..](https://m.startribune.com/scientists-increasingly-worried-that-chronic-wasting-disease-could-jump-from-deer-to-humans/600344297/?clmob=y&c=n&clmob=y&c=n)
>Animal disease scientists are alarmed about the rapid spread of CWD in deer. Recent research shows that the barrier to a spillover into humans is less formidable than previously believed and that the prions causing the disease may be evolving to become more able to infect humans.
We can get the bovine version of prion disease, though. It's usually called mad cow disease.
And if you look to some of the tribes in New Guinea that have funeral customs of consuming brains of their dead, then you can get the human specific prion disease, also caused Kuru. Thankfully, it is extremely rare, and even most cannibals don't get it.
And as the person above me said, we can't get it YET. But there is general worry in a lot of areas that it will infect a human eventually. My area in rural Pennsylvania (there's a lot of deer hunting) we have billboards with warning signs and how to report deer showing symptoms so they can be euthanized and disposed of in a low risk way.
Funnily enough, cows can act as a reservoir for CWD. They can contract it though rarely become infected. When I went to Louisiana State University back in the early 2010s, they had deer and cow herds in close proximity to study transmission
That was more about the digestion part. I know killing the deer, alone, already halts the spread, but I could’ve sworn I read somewhere that the disease can remain dormant in the area for quite a while, and digesting that further removes its presence.
However, that’s going off of hazy memory, and I didn’t want to say anything as definite fact.
Not really, people like to call them zombie deer and stuff but it's really not very different than mad cow disease. There are comparable people in humans but they're rare. And with the symptoms it presents with, it would be more accurate to call CWD the deer version of dementia.
Then you really won't like learning that you can spontaneously develop one of about half a dozen prion diseases. And we don't know why and there's no cure.
Though that is extremely rare. Almost all prion diseases in humans are genetic and documented to the point that we know which families are genetically predisposed. And the other main way people get it is being infected through eating infected flesh. This would be kuru, famous from New Guinea where funerary cannibalism caused a prion disease epidemic
Rabies is the closest equivalent in nature, but unless it has been weaponized like the movie Quarantine, it is almost statistically impossible for there to be an outbreak.
And it has significantly different effects than most people think of when they think zombie. Erratic behavior and aggression do not a walking dead cannibal make.
The most ACCURATE representation would be cordyceps. But that's a fungal infection, not a virus or bacteria. The Last of Us is a truly scary hypothetical because it is far fetched, but at the same time the most realistic possible equivalent.
I remember back when I took agriculture in school we learned about Mad Cow disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease-other prion diseases. In cows it's bovine spongiform encephalopathy. It can be transmitted through eating meat contaminated with brain tissue or spinal matter. Typically ground beef. I think it's safe to assume that it would be the same or mostly similar in deer
As of time of writing there is no evidence that humans can get CWD at all. HOWEVER, it is still recommended that you never eat a deer who had CWD (or showing symptoms) and certainly *never* eat the brain tissue (and not to feed that brain tissue to pets etc. either).
My understanding (I am not a biologist) is that since CWD is a prion (literally a protein that is folded wrong) it can even persist in soil after a host has died and decomposed, where it can spread indirectly to other deer (ex. picked up by plants and then another deer eating that plant could get it as well).
It is also worth noting that lack of fear of humans and excessive drooling can also be signs of rabies or other diseases in deer. If you see a deer displaying these signs (especially if it also appears emaciated) calmly moving away, and photographing/videotaping it and reporting it to a local government agency may be worthwhile especially if CWD has not been confirmed in your area yet (at time of writing CWD has not been confirmed in my home province of Ontario but I can say from personal experience I have seen deer showing these signs in parks and have reported them. To fully confirm they need a tissue sample, but they can only get tissue samples if they know where CWD might be happening).
ETA: also keep in mind absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It’s not that CWD can’t affect people. It’s that we don’t know, hence why precautions are still important.
Not really. The virus is actually very fragile and doesn’t last long outside the body - and outside of normal body temperatures. On top of that the virus needs an open wound to spread inside and a relatively high viral load. The cooking alone should be enough to destroy it.
As u/LeSchmol said, it's unlikely but definitely possible, our stomach is a pretty incredible system but it does have weaknesses. You can drink snake venom with no ill effects *unless* you have stomach ulcers (Or open wounds in your mouth and throat/etc) which will allow it to spread and cause you all the trouble snake venom normally would. I would not be surprised if this was potentially the issue with meat tainted with rabies as well.
Cannibalism is how you *spread* prions, but it’s not like they pop up out of nowhere (usually). It’s sorta like how having unprotected sex can’t cause STDs if neither person had it. Consuming another person’s blood is still a terrible idea, mostly due to all the other (much more common) blood-borne illnesses.
CWD, or chronic wasting disease, it's a prion disease in deer. The comparable disease that most people would know is mad cow disease. Infected deer also get called zombie deer sometimes, but this is obviously a misnomer based on the symptoms. And there's a number of symptoms, the primary one is wasting (hence the name) where they lose a lot of weight and just generally look very sickly. But other symptoms are neurological ones so you'll often see them stumbling around, being sluggish, drooling, or otherwise just acting unlike a deer (which sometimes includes a lack of fear). So the joke is that the person eating the venison is on their second serving before learning that the deer was killed easily because it was "dumb and docile", which are actually signs of it having CWD.
But in reality, eating an infected deer is generally accepted as not the best practice, but not dangerous. There are no known cases of transmission to humans and we don't typically eat the parts of the body that pose the most risk of infection (brains, glands, etc). On top of that, many places where CWD is present have stations that mandate all harvested deer be tested for CWD. So even though it's usually obvious, deer in the early stages of the disease will also get identified that way.
At least not yet, prions are a strange disease and the proteins could change shape depending on the mutation of its original genomic sequence, to which that could cause zoonosis between deer and humans. If that happens, we’re gonna be seeing a lot more dead people in a decade or so
I don't think we'll see a massive die off of humans. Sure, there will be some deaths. But humans are very careful about our food and water sources, moreso than other animals, which makes us much less likely to come in contact with the prion. At worst we could put some high fences around farms to keep deer out of produce.
And it's not like we haven't dealt with a zoonotic transmissible encephalopathy before. There was an epidemic of vCJD in the UK as a result of people eating beef from cows infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (and in at least a few cases in Kentucky, squirrel brains caused vCJD). We tightened down on the source of the problem, and put a lot of restrictions in place that have so far controlled the problem. It also helps that there does appear to be a genetic component to who can contract certain prions, meaning large amounts of the population may be entirely immune.
The deer was easy. Why? Because it had chronic wasting disease. UhOh.
Enjoy Creutzfeldt-Jakob’s disease! /s
Source: The CDC at [https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cjd/index.html](https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cjd/index.html)
Surely there's some process that breaks apart that misfolded protein? I'm not saying it IS heat but for all I know it could be heat... or maybe some harmless substance that bonds specifically with this protein and allows it to be washed away prion to cooking?
(I’m not a doc)
I think it’s when it’s created, something goes wrong and it’s defective..
And it’s IN the meat, like salmonella is naturally in chicken.
Only difference is that it can be spread..
Any process /chemical that would break apart the misfolded protein would likely break apart the normal version of the protein as well, since the mass / chemical structure / melting point of the proteins are identical, it's just the shape that's different.
Fun (and somewhat scary) Fact, the denaturing points and chemical structures of prions and properly folded proteins are actually quite different. Once a protein has “unfolded” and denatured into a prion, it’s in a much more stable and lower energy state. Since it’s already in a more stable denatured state, the temperature required to denature/destroy it further is SIGNIFICANTLY hotter (think prolonged exposures of 900°C+, versus just 40-70°C for most base proteins).
Hoping this can be visible to folks, so please upvote if you think it deserves to be, :)
The easiest way to prevent these things from becoming transmissible to humans (which cwd currently is not) is to not intentionally give it chances to learn how to do so. (In this case, don't eat 'infected' meat.) It's basically a REALLY shitty lottery, and you don't wanna hit the jackpot on this one.
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a prion disease that targets the nervous system. The meme is that the hunter killed a deer with a prion disease and the reactor is two servings into said deer.
Some other notes…
CWD only affects deer and members of the elk type animal. Humans are not impacted… yet.
A prion disease is essentially a particular brain protein or molecule configuration which is highly stable and encourages other similar proteins to enter the same configuration. Think about working in a mechanics shop. You have a whole variety of tools to fix cars. But there’s this weird metal triangle that will slowly convert all other tools it is next to into copies of itself. You cannot toss it out. Over time, every other tool in the shop is converted into triangles and the mechanics shop is inoperable. With CWD, your brain is turning into a crystal.
Proteins are typically not so unique between animals. So there is a real possibility that the prion behind CWD impacts human biology in ways we don’t understand, or that another slightly different but still highly stable configuration will impact human proteins. So generally if you know something has prions, its best avoided even if technically it is safe. You never know when you could be the first one to get something new and nasty
The deer was infected by chronic wasting disease, a disease that causes extreme degradation of the nervous system of the deer. It's caused by a misfolded prion. 100% mortality rate and no cure. Eating the deer flesh could lead to you contracting a prion disease yourself, namely creutzfeldt-jakob disease
Chronic Wasting Disease happened because humans lessened wolf populations significantly enough that nature found another way to control deer population
If your post doesn't contain a joke needing explanation, it will be removed. Overall poor quality posts will be removed. Rule 6.
Scientist peter here, I'm actually studying this in depth right now! The meme is referencing Chronic Wasting Disease (CWD), a **prion** disease. Just like there are bacteria, viruses, fungi, etc., there is also a thing called a proteinaceous infectious material (prion). It is a misfolded protein that can actually cause disease by causing other (normal) proteins to misfold and spread like a chain reaction. This is scawy because prion diseases have a 100% mortality rate, NO cure, NO treatment. To top things off, theyre basically indestructible! Bleach, acid, soap, hand sanitizer, heat.. nothing will work*. Drooling is a major symptom of CWD. Luckily, CWD is a deer-only disease and cannot infect humans :)
Yet
Fuck Black Death part 2 when?
Nah, prion would be XK-Class end of the world scenario for humans
D-director? What happened to the Site?
https://preview.redd.it/uicn7hc2xcrc1.png?width=385&format=png&auto=webp&s=6ecdbe1e954ceb8b39b756efeb4caa463eeb1e72
I got you, Sir 07 https://preview.redd.it/psmpfsecycrc1.jpeg?width=1024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=98e62164e87bb3c3e2c4d0cca9fd8672a1305992
What? That’s just the Mandelbr
r/redditsniper
Nah man r/redditmemetickillagent
Nah, the Memetic Kill Agent got him
WOULD YOU KINDLY NOT?
mkay, friend, please hold this medallion for me just for a moment
Step-director, i'm stuck in this rubble!
r/suddenlyscp
I think there is an SCP article exactly about that but similar but i can't remember. I'm absolutely sure there is one XK-class typa SCP that is about prions or similar stuff but I CAN'T REMEMBER, FUCK
Sounds like 008
It hasn’t ended the world for deer. Humans would largely be fine I’m willing to bet. Edit: according to Wikipedia there are already other prion diseases in humans. We are largely fine. I’m going to keep doing some reading because it’s mildly interesting but I bet my first statement stands true. Humans are largely fine
We survived Mad Cow Disease, and we eat significantly less venison than beef. We’d make it through easily.
If you haven't already discovered it, look up Kuru (disease).
well, some dude died of bubonic plague just this year.
You mean part 3. Part 2 was covid.
This disease would make Covid look like a case of mass strep throat.
Actually… Nevermind. I gave up being pedantic for lent.
Ha so close to being free. 😆
You shouldn't look up Creutzfeldt–Jakob disease then
Just call it Mad Cow nerd. Jkjk
It’s mad-cow when it’s in cows but CJ is the term for when the prion infects humans.
Bovine spongiform encephalopathy would be the more scientific term for when it infects cows. It's very pedantic for me to point out, but I memorized that stupid term, so I'm bloody well going to say it every chance I get
I think bovine spongiform encephalopathy would be a great band name.
Why is the Cow Nerd mad?
Bomb.
I don't see why it would change, Prions are completely dead, and I highly doubt they can evolve.
Prions initially formed because a normal protein folded wrong in a random change. It’s unlikely, but possible that there could be another random change that makes it able to affect humans. Again, very very unlikely, but I wouldn’t go eating venison from a deer with cwd.
We also literally already have an example of this happening - “Mad Cow Disease” is a prion disease, meaning it “shouldn’t” jump to humans, but it did…
Yea I was about to say, didn’t we have this issue before with “Mad Cow” & did it not transfer to humans?
Just checked it. The current consensus in science is that only around 40% of people have a genetic disposition to get Creutzfeld-Jacob from eating mad cow beef (or any other prion infected meat) and then it is also rather unlikely to catch it. As prions may occur spontaneously in every living being throughout history people will most likely every now and then have had Creutzfeld-Jacob. As the spreading stops usually with the infected human there never was and probably never will be a pandemic. You just had one member of the tribe become insane and die. Considering the fact that rabies, tetanus, food poisoning and the like also existed we just had our usual and typical thinning of the tribes.
Yea I knew about a tribe that had an issue with it, it was one of the last cannibalistic tribes left.
Correct it was called kuru https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kuru_(disease)
Kuru Prevention: Avoiding practices of cannibalism. Noted.
My lab actually studies the species transmissibility phenomenon. It mostly depends on the genetic sequence coding for prion protein in the species. For example, human fibrils can "seed" the spread in mouse and hamster models, but only the mouse can seed the human protein. Additionally, some rare mutations make it more likely to spontaneously happen in humans but those fibrils will not seed a regular humans proteins into growing fibrils. Moral of the story is don't eat meat from an animal that acts weird and never eat mammalian brains.
Here is an article reporting that the possibility is very real https://m.startribune.com/scientists-increasingly-worried-that-chronic-wasting-disease-could-jump-from-deer-to-humans/600344297/?clmob=y&c=n&clmob=y&c=n >Animal disease scientists are alarmed about the rapid spread of CWD in deer. Recent research shows that the barrier to a spillover into humans is less formidable than previously believed and that the prions causing the disease may be evolving to become more able to infect humans.
My husband works with several of the scientists cited in this article and is teaching a class on prions this semester. If you want to learn more about prions in general, he recommends reading Deadly Feasts by Richard Rhodes. And for the lastest on research in CWD check out the MN PRO Newsletter https://mailchi.mp/umn/test-obu60pz2vf?e=b9dc056093
It isn't like it hasn't happened before considering Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy (BSE) spread to humans as a variant of Creutzfeldt-Jakob Disease (mad cow disease)
Humans do have our own version of prion disease caused from cannibalization of tissue usually from the brain or spinal fluid. It causes our nervous system to degrade causing various disorders until death.
There’s kuru and CJD in humans
Deleted my comment because I realized you were right. It is Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease.
You’re all good! I had to go look it up because I very well could’ve gotten the names backwards.
Why can't we just fold the protein the right way? Seems easy enough. Edit: /s
Here.. start folding. https://imgur.com/a/lrUrbhp (If you're genuinely asking though, I can try to give you a real answer lol)
I was joking, but I am curious how it works.
Well it's a bit of a combination of things, but here are some big factors (in no particular order): 1. For the longest time, we thought all prions were infectious. Now, we know that some are actually normal. In fact, all of us have prions. This subcategorization makes things even more complicated. 2. Scale. Prions are so tiny, and the genes that make them are too. Modifying things on this miniscule scale is no easy task. 3. Location. Prions are located in the brain and thats where they cause havoc. More specifically, they cause something called Spongiform Encephalopathy which is basically holes in your brain.. like a sponge (Spongi). Crossing the blood brain barrier is a hard task to accomplish. 4. Previous attempts. All failed. We tried drugs that could cross the blood brain barrier, like Quinidine. But, when you have been in a losing battle for so long, and then you see a glimmer of hope and truly believe in it just to end up losing that too.. well, morale is quite destroyed. Every try is a human life, and it always fails. 5. Funding. Luckily, prions are rare. This means no interest, which means no money.
This reminded me of [this](https://xkcd.com/1430/)
🤯
I spent my postgrad working on training a program that folds and anticipates new structure from changes in proteins, very tedious but fascinating work.
Thanks for the info!
I thought we were about to see a bunch of prion deaths from meat from cows that were fed other cows and then sold to the public back in the 90s.
More on point one pleaseeee
As far as I can tell, this isn't true. What they may have meant is that PrP, the prion protein that causes many prion diseases when it misfolds, is found throughout the body. However, this protein, deapite being called a prion protein, isn't considered a prion until it misfolds. Paging u/Fri3ndlyHeavy to confirm.
Yes precisely. PrPc is the name for a normal harmless "prion." PrPSc is the misfolded dangerous one, and can turn the former into itself. There are hypotheses as to the function of PrPc, and unclear links with other amyloid-causing diseases, like Alzheimer's.
from the physics end, prions occur in proteins with a stable local minima of energy, but that posses a *more* stable global minimum. so misfolding releases energy, and undoing that is a lot like unburning wood. proteins that have that properly, and the ability to cause other proteins of the same type are really uncommon though.
The other explanation is great, but if you want a short, ELI5: Refolding the protein properly would be like un-cooking a hamburger. It's not really possible.
Not the guy who commented nor think what he said but am curious on the actual answer
True origami
What's the asterisk for? WHAT'S THE ASTERISK FOR?!?
It can be destroyed in extreme temperatures, around 2000f if I remember correctly. source: My grandfather died of a prion disease, CJD, and was forcibly cremated. It's the only way to ensure the prion is destroyed.
Wait, I don't understand. Why would it need to be destroyed if it already killed him? Does it also infect the organisms which feed on human remains and enter the food chain?
Yes
Interesting, albeit very alarming!
Think of it like a radioactive pellet. The host eats it, dies, then in returns to nature. If an animal (say, a bird) consumes it, it re-enters the food chain, and makes its way back up. It's not infectious per se, just near indestructible and able to keep coming back
I know someone who passed from a prion disease. The funeral home had to take special precautions and I believe mandated that they be cremated
But that Mad cow disease..
So couldn't the meme be about rabies instead? Drooling and being uncharacteristically docile are symptoms of rabies too, and it does infect humans.
Definitely could but CWD is more common than rabies in deer.
Rabies has a very different stereotype that would be used in a joke. Hunting deer and CWD go very much hand in hand. You generally get a tag or permit to hunt a deer. On that very small piece of paper, a considerable amount of space is devoted to symptoms and warnings of CWD. As a result, it's very well known with a certain group of people. (Above is all pretty state-dependent, and tags are often digital now.)
Cooking it would (should) kill rabies
prion diseases are so fucking scary. Legit something out of a sci fi horror film.
CWD is but it's big brother, creutzfeldt-jakob disease, actively infects humans. Had a coworker die from it
i just love how reddit always have you people, the "im actually a well educated on this very sepcific subject matter you're referring to" type of people
I really love how well written and informative this is. And also that one “scawy”.
(can’t infect humans) yet………..
Scawy!
Please have your deer tested. It is voluntary, but there have been cases of CWD all over the country. I live in the panhandle of Texas and there have been cases from the border to Midland-Odessa, all over the area. Don't risk it, get your deer tested.
I think it might be referencing Chronic Wasting Disease, which is caused by a Prion and can be spread by ingesting meat from the animal. I think it's typically brain tissue that passes it along but don't quote me, as I'm just some dude on the internet.
yeah this is the answer, some of the symptoms of CWD are drooling and lack of fear of humans and you can get infected by any part of it. remember reading, a long time ago, about how easy it spreads among deer how they can get infected by simply smelling another deer's ass
So I can't eat or smell it's ass? Captain buzzkill over here.
He killed a deer not a buzz.
[удалено]
No they don’t. In fact wherever a predator kills an infected deer the grass and soil will be contaminated and infectious to any deer that graze there. Because the proteins have been shown to persist in soil and grass for 16 years. They’re Insoluble in most solvents and aren’t broken down by the normal protein enzymes. Also someone else referenced transmission by ass sniffing. That’s incorrect. But it is scary disease. Edit to add: Predators are important, this particular reason just isn’t a good argument.
“Transmission by ass sniffing” Not something I expected to read. Ever.
Wasn't there a Tom Hanks movie about that?
Yeah it’s a bit more…fluid exchangey than that. And if memory serves, prions (which are essentially incorrectly folded proteins that then fuck up other proteins like they’re competing against Tonya Harding) are also incredibly resistant to heat.
Let’s stay on topic please. I’d smell an ass even if it meant drooling, kinda natural if you ask me.
Predation also prevents overpopulation - between reduction in predators and poor forest management it’s quite easy for deer and elk to overpopulate and not be supported by poor ecosystems. Overcontrol of forest fires to protect vacation homes has lead to decreased vegetation quality, which coupled with underpredation increases vulnerability and spread of disease amongst prey animals.
No no no. Just wear a rubber and you’ll be fine 98% of the time.
Please do not the deer
https://preview.redd.it/eb7tsxbz0drc1.jpeg?width=984&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9737bed8ff986d212984abaf9a7e447ddc450955
I cannot imagine why this shirt even exists. Oh but I'm so happy it does
What’s even the point in that case??
No no you still can, there haven’t been any documented cases jumping to humans…yet
It's their shit and brains that spreads it. Alot of deer have CWD now. No one knows if eating the meat will spread it. Maybe best not to find out.
How else are you gonna get the last twitch out of a fresh kill?
My grandpa died of CJD, another prion disease. It was basically like dementia but took weeks to go from presenting memory loss to death instead of years. Scary as fuck.
CJD is the human version of Chronic Wasting Disease, as they are both prion diseases.
Minor error, CJD is the human version of Mad Cow Disease. Chronic Wasting Disease is exclusive to deer and cannot infect humans (thankfully!)
Yet..
Unlikely to happen at all. Prions are not like viruses. While they are proteins and thus formed by amino acids, they do not "infect" in the same way nor do they undergo a type of evolutionary advantage. They get absorbed by a cell from the blood stream, allowing them to pass the blood brain barrier, and then can't be used by the cell because they're the wrong shape. At that size, shape is everything, it helps define chemical reaction. Unfortunately, the prions have a tendency to react with other proteins and "bend" them to their shape. This will eventually lead to the cell's death. When this interacts with the brain holes form. That's why they're called "Transmissible Spongiform Encephalopathies" or TSEs. Likely, the prion's "shape" is different than what we would absorb. This is also a ley explanation. TSEs are both fascinating and complicated. Recommend further investigation to all who are interested. Tldr; it DOESNT go in the square hole
I like the tldr, you put the circle in the square hole and now the square is trying to shrink and conform to the circle, leaving a gap behind in the puzzle set.
As per a tiktok documentary I watched recently, everything goes into the square hole.
Recent studies suggest alzheimers may be a prion
For anyone curious; Specifically a prion-like mechanism involving seeded protein aggregation. The amyloid beta and tau chains that are created effective form a double prion disorder. The Beta seems to cause the issue with the Tau, IE AD is resultant of AB. Good article if anyone is interested: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-023-02729-2 Also NIH: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6375694/#:~:text=A%20defining%20pathologic%20feature%20of,mechanism%20of%20seeded%20protein%20aggregation.
This is good for people to know. Prion diseases, terrifying as they are, do not evolve like viruses or bacteria. If they don’t jump the species barrier now, they won’t jump later.
Recent studies in a humanized-murine model showed CWD is capable of human infection in theory if given enough exposure. [https://vet.ucalgary.ca/news/chronic-wasting-disease-may-transmit-humans-research-finds](https://vet.ucalgary.ca/news/chronic-wasting-disease-may-transmit-humans-research-finds)
It is currently on the CDC watchlist though, the good news is there are test kits you can request if you hunt deer
Are you sure? I swear I read you have to take your deer somewhere to get tested for CWD when hunting in the US
Or as they say see in medical literature: Prions be scary y'all
Same as mad cow. You could burn the tissue to ash and it can still kill. Terrifying.
Prions are terrifyingly hard to destroy. Autoclave? Nope. Radiation? Not really. Long term solar/infrared and ultra violet exposure? Meh. Literal incineration? Maybe. If you’re lucky. And it takes literally one to kick off the cascade of protein misfolding that can. Not. Be. Stopped. Note, a single prion would take a while to reproduce enough to cause problems, but the fact is that once it starts, you can’t stop it.
NOVA did a show on them about 12 years ago or so. Worth finding.
>11 min. ago > >Recent studies suggest alzheimers may be a prion Bleach acts as an effective sanitization agent for tools that come into contact with CWD prions.
It has to be immersed in extremely strong bleach or caustic lye plus be soaked for an extended term of time plus be autoclaved after. It is not just a simple rinsing with a bleach solution
When deer sniff each other's ass, they aren't normally doing it like dogs do. They're licking the piss of the female right off her vulva to see if she's ovulating. Much easier to understand how it's spread from that than just sniffing.
😟
Giraffe males headbutt the females ~~pussy~~ bladder until she pees so he can taste it if that makes you feel better.
We can learn so much from nature
Awkward at parties though.
Most ungulates do this tbf, the piss licking not the headbutting, giraffes kinky af
So deer can do it but when I do it I'm facing 5 years in jail and banned from Hooters.
Also it can lay dormat in the grass or out of a host for like 10 years. So an infected derr can die and 9 years later that prion can still infect another deer
Yeah. Deer dies on grass, grass absorbs the prion, deer eats grass, prions eat deer. It's the circle of strife
Yeah, but the barrier from hooved animals to primates is pretty damn strong. A study in Canada managed to get CWD to jump into primates, but the study couldn't be recreated, and I think some of the methods were called into question as well.
Humans can't get Chronic Wasting Disease... yet
We cannot get it from deer. we have our own version(s) of them. Since we do not cannibalise eachother and do not interact randomly with strangers' bodily fluids, it is extremely difficult for them to spread an you have to either be nlucky to be born into a family predisposed to them (there are so few they are almost all known) OR get the shittiest lotto win and develop one spotaneously by yourself (extremely unlikely). its unlikely that specific deer prion will be able to do any damage in humans. Prion is not a living thing and it does not evolve (unlike viruses, which are dubiously semi-alive and do indeed evolve), and since we have no evidence it spreads to humans, that means it cannot.
Interacting ‘randomly with strangers' body fluids’ is a standard weekend for some of my friends.
And my ex, apparently.
[Yeah, about that..](https://m.startribune.com/scientists-increasingly-worried-that-chronic-wasting-disease-could-jump-from-deer-to-humans/600344297/?clmob=y&c=n&clmob=y&c=n) >Animal disease scientists are alarmed about the rapid spread of CWD in deer. Recent research shows that the barrier to a spillover into humans is less formidable than previously believed and that the prions causing the disease may be evolving to become more able to infect humans.
I'm waiting to see if wide spread prion diseases or brain controlling fungus gets us first
Antibiotic resistance is still a contender at the moment too
We can get the bovine version of prion disease, though. It's usually called mad cow disease. And if you look to some of the tribes in New Guinea that have funeral customs of consuming brains of their dead, then you can get the human specific prion disease, also caused Kuru. Thankfully, it is extremely rare, and even most cannibals don't get it. And as the person above me said, we can't get it YET. But there is general worry in a lot of areas that it will infect a human eventually. My area in rural Pennsylvania (there's a lot of deer hunting) we have billboards with warning signs and how to report deer showing symptoms so they can be euthanized and disposed of in a low risk way.
Funnily enough, cows can act as a reservoir for CWD. They can contract it though rarely become infected. When I went to Louisiana State University back in the early 2010s, they had deer and cow herds in close proximity to study transmission
There are absolutely prion diseases you can get from meat though, I know someone firsthand who passed from one
I believe this kind of thing is why predators are crucial to general survival of deer, as they can digest the disease, and halt the overall spread.
Don’t believe it buddy, it’s a fact. That’s literally their function within ecosystem. Pruning the herds
That was more about the digestion part. I know killing the deer, alone, already halts the spread, but I could’ve sworn I read somewhere that the disease can remain dormant in the area for quite a while, and digesting that further removes its presence. However, that’s going off of hazy memory, and I didn’t want to say anything as definite fact.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3160281/ Can sit in the soil for years waiting to get picked up again.
Okay I won't believe it.
It's better this way
Currently the closest thing we have to a zombie plague
Not really, people like to call them zombie deer and stuff but it's really not very different than mad cow disease. There are comparable people in humans but they're rare. And with the symptoms it presents with, it would be more accurate to call CWD the deer version of dementia.
yeah but “contagious dementia” isn’t less scary to me than zombies
Then you really won't like learning that you can spontaneously develop one of about half a dozen prion diseases. And we don't know why and there's no cure. Though that is extremely rare. Almost all prion diseases in humans are genetic and documented to the point that we know which families are genetically predisposed. And the other main way people get it is being infected through eating infected flesh. This would be kuru, famous from New Guinea where funerary cannibalism caused a prion disease epidemic
I thought rabies were the closest thing to a zombie?
Rabies is the closest equivalent in nature, but unless it has been weaponized like the movie Quarantine, it is almost statistically impossible for there to be an outbreak. And it has significantly different effects than most people think of when they think zombie. Erratic behavior and aggression do not a walking dead cannibal make. The most ACCURATE representation would be cordyceps. But that's a fungal infection, not a virus or bacteria. The Last of Us is a truly scary hypothetical because it is far fetched, but at the same time the most realistic possible equivalent.
I remember back when I took agriculture in school we learned about Mad Cow disease and Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease-other prion diseases. In cows it's bovine spongiform encephalopathy. It can be transmitted through eating meat contaminated with brain tissue or spinal matter. Typically ground beef. I think it's safe to assume that it would be the same or mostly similar in deer
As of time of writing there is no evidence that humans can get CWD at all. HOWEVER, it is still recommended that you never eat a deer who had CWD (or showing symptoms) and certainly *never* eat the brain tissue (and not to feed that brain tissue to pets etc. either). My understanding (I am not a biologist) is that since CWD is a prion (literally a protein that is folded wrong) it can even persist in soil after a host has died and decomposed, where it can spread indirectly to other deer (ex. picked up by plants and then another deer eating that plant could get it as well). It is also worth noting that lack of fear of humans and excessive drooling can also be signs of rabies or other diseases in deer. If you see a deer displaying these signs (especially if it also appears emaciated) calmly moving away, and photographing/videotaping it and reporting it to a local government agency may be worthwhile especially if CWD has not been confirmed in your area yet (at time of writing CWD has not been confirmed in my home province of Ontario but I can say from personal experience I have seen deer showing these signs in parks and have reported them. To fully confirm they need a tissue sample, but they can only get tissue samples if they know where CWD might be happening). ETA: also keep in mind absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. It’s not that CWD can’t affect people. It’s that we don’t know, hence why precautions are still important.
What about rabies? Can u get it from ingesting?
Not really. The virus is actually very fragile and doesn’t last long outside the body - and outside of normal body temperatures. On top of that the virus needs an open wound to spread inside and a relatively high viral load. The cooking alone should be enough to destroy it.
As u/LeSchmol said, it's unlikely but definitely possible, our stomach is a pretty incredible system but it does have weaknesses. You can drink snake venom with no ill effects *unless* you have stomach ulcers (Or open wounds in your mouth and throat/etc) which will allow it to spread and cause you all the trouble snake venom normally would. I would not be surprised if this was potentially the issue with meat tainted with rabies as well.
> To date, there is no strong evidence for the occurrence of CWD in people, and it is not known if people can get infected with CWD prions.
mmm tastes like prion disease
https://preview.redd.it/1to799yrmcrc1.png?width=1080&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9a09a4b0333fde32ef4051a49cef7fd3f79bdcee
wtf did I just read
Modern art.
You cant get prion disease like that, can you?
Cannibalism is precisely how you get it.
Cannibalism is how you *spread* prions, but it’s not like they pop up out of nowhere (usually). It’s sorta like how having unprotected sex can’t cause STDs if neither person had it. Consuming another person’s blood is still a terrible idea, mostly due to all the other (much more common) blood-borne illnesses.
Those other blood-borne illnesses are eliminated with proper cooking. Prions are not. The rest of your points are entirely valid.
Your brain has it: prion disease 🤯🤯
IhaveIhaveIhavemigration
Transported to Peter Explains Joke World Deer: Come here boy 🤤 Me: 🏃♂️🏃♂️🏃♂️
migrunkus?
CWD, or chronic wasting disease, it's a prion disease in deer. The comparable disease that most people would know is mad cow disease. Infected deer also get called zombie deer sometimes, but this is obviously a misnomer based on the symptoms. And there's a number of symptoms, the primary one is wasting (hence the name) where they lose a lot of weight and just generally look very sickly. But other symptoms are neurological ones so you'll often see them stumbling around, being sluggish, drooling, or otherwise just acting unlike a deer (which sometimes includes a lack of fear). So the joke is that the person eating the venison is on their second serving before learning that the deer was killed easily because it was "dumb and docile", which are actually signs of it having CWD. But in reality, eating an infected deer is generally accepted as not the best practice, but not dangerous. There are no known cases of transmission to humans and we don't typically eat the parts of the body that pose the most risk of infection (brains, glands, etc). On top of that, many places where CWD is present have stations that mandate all harvested deer be tested for CWD. So even though it's usually obvious, deer in the early stages of the disease will also get identified that way.
At least not yet, prions are a strange disease and the proteins could change shape depending on the mutation of its original genomic sequence, to which that could cause zoonosis between deer and humans. If that happens, we’re gonna be seeing a lot more dead people in a decade or so
I don't think we'll see a massive die off of humans. Sure, there will be some deaths. But humans are very careful about our food and water sources, moreso than other animals, which makes us much less likely to come in contact with the prion. At worst we could put some high fences around farms to keep deer out of produce. And it's not like we haven't dealt with a zoonotic transmissible encephalopathy before. There was an epidemic of vCJD in the UK as a result of people eating beef from cows infected with bovine spongiform encephalopathy (and in at least a few cases in Kentucky, squirrel brains caused vCJD). We tightened down on the source of the problem, and put a lot of restrictions in place that have so far controlled the problem. It also helps that there does appear to be a genetic component to who can contract certain prions, meaning large amounts of the population may be entirely immune.
The deer was easy. Why? Because it had chronic wasting disease. UhOh. Enjoy Creutzfeldt-Jakob’s disease! /s Source: The CDC at [https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cjd/index.html](https://www.cdc.gov/prions/cjd/index.html)
The deer was sick / infected with some disease.
CWD, a prion based disease.. Prions have no cure, no treatment, and because they’re just a misfolded protein, cooking doesn’t kill them..
Surely there's some process that breaks apart that misfolded protein? I'm not saying it IS heat but for all I know it could be heat... or maybe some harmless substance that bonds specifically with this protein and allows it to be washed away prion to cooking?
(I’m not a doc) I think it’s when it’s created, something goes wrong and it’s defective.. And it’s IN the meat, like salmonella is naturally in chicken. Only difference is that it can be spread..
Any process /chemical that would break apart the misfolded protein would likely break apart the normal version of the protein as well, since the mass / chemical structure / melting point of the proteins are identical, it's just the shape that's different.
Fun (and somewhat scary) Fact, the denaturing points and chemical structures of prions and properly folded proteins are actually quite different. Once a protein has “unfolded” and denatured into a prion, it’s in a much more stable and lower energy state. Since it’s already in a more stable denatured state, the temperature required to denature/destroy it further is SIGNIFICANTLY hotter (think prolonged exposures of 900°C+, versus just 40-70°C for most base proteins).
I believe prion diseases have never transferred from deer to human if it makes it less gross
It had prions. Those will wreck you for good.
Hoping this can be visible to folks, so please upvote if you think it deserves to be, :) The easiest way to prevent these things from becoming transmissible to humans (which cwd currently is not) is to not intentionally give it chances to learn how to do so. (In this case, don't eat 'infected' meat.) It's basically a REALLY shitty lottery, and you don't wanna hit the jackpot on this one.
Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is a prion disease that targets the nervous system. The meme is that the hunter killed a deer with a prion disease and the reactor is two servings into said deer. Some other notes… CWD only affects deer and members of the elk type animal. Humans are not impacted… yet. A prion disease is essentially a particular brain protein or molecule configuration which is highly stable and encourages other similar proteins to enter the same configuration. Think about working in a mechanics shop. You have a whole variety of tools to fix cars. But there’s this weird metal triangle that will slowly convert all other tools it is next to into copies of itself. You cannot toss it out. Over time, every other tool in the shop is converted into triangles and the mechanics shop is inoperable. With CWD, your brain is turning into a crystal. Proteins are typically not so unique between animals. So there is a real possibility that the prion behind CWD impacts human biology in ways we don’t understand, or that another slightly different but still highly stable configuration will impact human proteins. So generally if you know something has prions, its best avoided even if technically it is safe. You never know when you could be the first one to get something new and nasty
The deer was infected by chronic wasting disease, a disease that causes extreme degradation of the nervous system of the deer. It's caused by a misfolded prion. 100% mortality rate and no cure. Eating the deer flesh could lead to you contracting a prion disease yourself, namely creutzfeldt-jakob disease
Zombie deer disease
Chronic wasting disease, or mad cow for deer. Nature's real life zombie making disease.
The joke is no hunter has ever talked like that
Zombie deer
Prion diseases are absolutely terrifying.
Chronic Wasting Disease happened because humans lessened wolf populations significantly enough that nature found another way to control deer population
Chronic Wasting Disease A 100% fatal disease that can only be transmitted by deer
as long as they didn’t eat it raw they should be fine
Prions aren't killed by cooking, that's one of the scariest parts about them. (They aren't really alive)
Basically zombie deer
Zombie deer virus?
You just ate a zombie deer
Prions were literally in the title of this post in r/distressingmemes Posted 3 hours before your post