Primate; urgh
Today I walked over to the AMC to watch Primate. Pretty forgettable movie in a pretty soulless theater in a pretty gross corporate hellscape of a neighborhood. Would not recommend any of the above. If you’re in the greater Boston area, I’d recommend checking out what’s showing at the Somerville Theatre or The Brattle before trying the AMC at Assembly.
Short one today. Did you know rabies takes one to three months from infection to first symptoms? The virus spends that time hiking up your nerves from the site of infection to the brain.
In countries where rabies is common in dogs, the vast majority of cases in humans come from dog bites. Thankfully in Europe and the United States there is no longer a stable circulating population of rabies in dogs. Score one for vaccination!
One last odd rabies story before I go.
In 1978, a hiker walking through the Rhone River valley in the Swiss Alps might have been surprised to stumble over a chicken head. Chicken heads, laced with live rabies vaccine, had been spread across the valley in an attempt to halt an oncoming tide of rabies. Scientists hoped that foxes would eat the bait, thus immunizing themselves and forming a living barrier against the disease. The plan worked, and hope for a new solution to the rabies problem grew.
Chicken heads are messy and hard to get in massive numbers, so scientists developed a sort of fox dessert wafer made of fishmeal, bonemeal and fat, with an imbedded plastic packet of rabies vaccine. The wafer was a hit with foxes, and since 1983 over 5.2 million baits have been distributed. Over 70 per cent of foxes in the target areas take the bait and become immunized. This means that there are no longer enough susceptible animals in these areas to continue the chain of transmission.
Today Switzerland is virtually rabies-free.
Taken from The World of the Fox by Rebecca L. Grambo.
Hey, what the hell, are those vampire teeth?!
