I'm not real knowledgeable about pathology, but some of the things pathogens do to you either create conditions in the body that are more favorable to them or facilitate their exit strategy to find the next host. Viruses of course often work by taking over a cell and then replicating until it explodes, which of course is not going to be good for the host if it gets out of hand. The virus needs to find a balance between sploding you enough to replicate but not sploding you so much they can't get to the next host.
I went to a talk once by a researcher who studies pathogenic E. coli, and she said the really deadly strains are like the adolescents of the bacterial world. They're evolutionarily young and still kind of flailing around trying to figure out where they fit in, but eventually they will grow up and be less of a pain.
Your idea reminds me a little bit of Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312. In his vision of the future, we hollow out asteroids to use as spaceships. They're set spinning to create gravity at whatever level is desired, and all kinds of artificial habitats can be set up inside. It was a really fun book.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2014-01-28 08:48 pm (UTC)I'm not real knowledgeable about pathology, but some of the things pathogens do to you either create conditions in the body that are more favorable to them or facilitate their exit strategy to find the next host. Viruses of course often work by taking over a cell and then replicating until it explodes, which of course is not going to be good for the host if it gets out of hand. The virus needs to find a balance between sploding you enough to replicate but not sploding you so much they can't get to the next host.
I went to a talk once by a researcher who studies pathogenic E. coli, and she said the really deadly strains are like the adolescents of the bacterial world. They're evolutionarily young and still kind of flailing around trying to figure out where they fit in, but eventually they will grow up and be less of a pain.
Your idea reminds me a little bit of Kim Stanley Robinson's 2312. In his vision of the future, we hollow out asteroids to use as spaceships. They're set spinning to create gravity at whatever level is desired, and all kinds of artificial habitats can be set up inside. It was a really fun book.