This is so fascinating. When I was younger and first learning about viruses, I found them frightening - this thing that wasn't technically alive but just a capsule of DNA with no metabolism of its own, taking over other living cells and using them to replicate. As an adult I find prions even more eery - there isn't even DNA involved. Just a bizarre, super stable protein that makes other proteins re-fold, and there's no known way to prevent this. I wonder if in a 100 years they'll have figured this out and look back on us thinking, "oh, you poor things, you never stood a chance."
This is so fascinating. When I was younger and first learning about viruses, I found them frightening - this thing that wasn't technically alive but just a capsule of DNA with no metabolism of its own, taking over other living cells and using them to replicate. As an adult I find prions even more eery - there isn't even DNA involved. Just a bizarre, super stable protein that makes other proteins re-fold, and there's no known way to prevent this. I wonder if in a 100 years they'll have figured this out and look back on us thinking, "oh, you poor things, you never stood a chance."