Re: OT: Senile, drunken hymenoptera


Robert Grumbine wrote:
In article <1158077251.840201.239490@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Noone Inparticular <unreve89@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Robert Grumbine wrote:
Probably another entry in the list of charges against the 'intelligent'
designer.

Around this time of year wasps are getting pretty old, and fruit is
rotting (fermenting) on the ground. So there are hordes of senile
and drunk wasps flying around. Senile, drunken wasps get pretty confused
about whether they need to defend the nest so attack innocent trail
runners without much regard for whether trail runner (or equally innocent
gardner or yard mower) is actually doing anything threatening.

Saturday I got re-introduced to that bit of poor design. Also poor
design on the human side -- our sometimes hyperactive defense system.
Nailed in the leg Saturday morning by a giant european hornet, leg and
the arm on that side both swelled subtantially. Leg, three days later,
is still quite swollen. But at least the nausea is mostly past.

What's so intelligent about a defense system which is liable to kill you
itself? (n.b. recent _Discover_ magazine has an article about our T cells
not having 'brakes' which the other primates do have, and linking that to
our horde of auto-immune response illneseses.)

What?!? They most certainly do. Discover magazine is an unreliable
source. Or maybe you're misremembering?

Accurate memory, but I can't speak to the source:
http://www.discover.com/issues/sep-06/rd/uniquediseases/

"Varki studies siglecs, small groups of receptors that thickly stud the
immune T cells of monkeys and apes but are few and far between in humans.
Siglecs act as brakes, stopping the immune system from overreacting.
Because human T cells don't have as many of these brakes, our cells are
a hundred times more aggressive than those of chimps when faced with
drugs like TGN1412, which work by triggering the immune system."

and:
"An overreactive immune system helps fend off infections, but it could
also explain why we suffer from immune-system diseases like bronchial
asthma, chronic hepatitis, and type I diabetes, which don't affect
chimps. Overactive T cells are also a factor in AIDS, points out Varki,
which may help explain why HIV, which evolved in chimps, kills only humans.
"


*sigh* <rubs temples>

The fact is that humans are capable of attenuating immune responses.

What can I say? Journalists. Notice this; "...immune T cells of monkeys
and apes but are few and far between in humans."?

'nuf said.


... still feeling a little waspish.

If I had the time, I'd write a stinging critique of the article.


--
Robert Grumbine http://www.radix.net/~bobg/ Science faqs and amateur activities notes and links.
Sagredo (Galileo Galilei) "You present these recondite matters with too much
evidence and ease; this great facility makes them less appreciated than they
would be had they been presented in a more abstruse manner." Two New Sciences

.

Relevant Pages

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