• Question: will you ever find another disease that no one knows about yet

    Asked by caity24601 to Cristiane, Nicki, Nikolai, Richard, Samuel on 13 Mar 2015.
    • Photo: Nikolai Adamski

      Nikolai Adamski answered on 13 Mar 2015:

      In the case of plant disease, my answer would be a definite maybe 🙂
      Bacteria, fungi and viruses are constantly changing and evolving, so of course there is the possibility that for example a new virus strain may cause a new disease. But whether I’m the one to find it…..most likely not.

    • Photo: Richard Simons

      Richard Simons answered on 13 Mar 2015:

      It’s not my field directly, so not me personally, but I can guarantee that scientists around the world are doing just that. Microbes (bacteria, viruses, spores) are very very small, so they’re hard to find, but it also means that they can get in a lot of places. They also reproduce very quickly, which means that they can respond quickly to their local environment.
      These two traits make them masters of evolution, adapting quickly to fill an environmental niche, so there are always new microbes out there, some good, some nasty, but most who just live and have no interest in humans or what we do (not that they really think at all!)

    • Photo: Nicki Whitehouse

      Nicki Whitehouse answered on 13 Mar 2015:

      I’m sure… ancient DNA is now throwing up all sorts of viruses and bacteria preserved from the past that may be different to the ones we know about… these are preserved in permafrost sediments or sometimes in preserved faeces… the link below takes you to a recent story on this. How cool is that?

      http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/ancient-virus-dna-revived-700-year-old-caribou-feces

    • Photo: Samuel Ellis

      Samuel Ellis answered on 13 Mar 2015:

      It is possible, although unlikely I’d ever find something by myself.. science is all about teamwork!

      New types of disease-causing bacteria are always being discovered, as there is so much variety out there. E.coli have been known about for around 130 years, yet the type I work with weren’t discovered properly until about 30 years ago.. and scientists did not realise it caused lots of disease around the world until even more recently. So who knows, I might find something new too eventually!

Comments