Timeline for On a generation ship, how to handle the dead?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
17 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
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| Feb 25, 2016 at 3:00 | comment | added | Mikey | @SørenD.Ptæus - Wow - I never would have believed it - thank you for the notice | |
| Feb 24, 2016 at 8:42 | comment | added | Søren D. Ptæus | @Mikey Are you asking about infections in general? In the paper Fresh fruit and vegetables as vehicles for the transmission of human pathogens the authors claim "Salmonella serovar Montenegro internalized into bean sprout seed has been detected inside the growing plant after germination (Warriner et al., 2003); this suggests that Salmonella strains can ‘invade’ plant tissues [...]" And: "inoculation of iceberg lettuce leaves [...] resulted in [bacterial invasion] into the inner leaf tissue". So, yes. | |
| Feb 23, 2016 at 20:38 | comment | added | Mikey | Would there be any problem with infection if the dead's remains give nutrition to something like an apple tree instead of being spread directly on, say, the bean sprouts. | |
| Feb 23, 2016 at 4:40 | comment | added | Ronk | @NoctisSkytower: Yes, heat from a fire causes particles to rise before being consumed. Leaves are carried with smoke before burning, celluloid film also fires and flies away without being burned, and celluloid is much more combustible than paper. Although, burning will probably be controlled on a generational ship inside a pressure cooker of some sort, keeping infected materials from escaping. | |
| Mar 12, 2015 at 11:09 | comment | added | Ville Niemi | @SerbanTanasa Depends what you use to burn the body and how long. The ash particles would be pretty good heat insulators, so in the traditional method the temperature inside the particles might never rise high enough to destroy all prions. | |
| Mar 12, 2015 at 11:09 | comment | added | Søren D. Ptæus | @SerbanTanasa You are right in that modern cremation techniques will denaturate the prions. However, traditional cremation as still practiced today – although being more than just the heating of the body – fails to achieve the same effect. | |
| Mar 12, 2015 at 10:50 | history | edited | Søren D. Ptæus | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added additional research on prion infectivity of remains
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| Mar 12, 2015 at 9:51 | comment | added | user3652621 | @SørenD.Ptæus Heating vs Burning - i'm pretty sure that burning a body to ash will destroy prions. | |
| Mar 10, 2015 at 19:55 | vote | accept | celtschk | ||
| Mar 10, 2015 at 14:53 | comment | added | Søren D. Ptæus | @NoctisSkytower: Yes. Taken from wikipedia on sterilizing prions "[Prions (Proteinaceous Infectious particles)] are quite resistant to proteases, heat, radiation, and formalin treatments, although their infectivity can be reduced by such treatments." The treatment recommended by the WHO includes cooking in an autoclave for 30-60 minutes in water, sodium hypochlorite/hydroxide before even doing routine sterilization. Without using increased pressure the proteins are even harder to denaturate. Guess a cleansing fire is not so good after all. | |
| Mar 10, 2015 at 14:00 | comment | added | Noctis Skytower | Can you really get a disease by eating the remains from fire? | |
| Mar 10, 2015 at 8:58 | comment | added | user3082 | And possibly other diseases. | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 17:03 | history | edited | Søren D. Ptæus | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
@user3082: Thanks for your contribution. I edited my answer according to your objection.
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| Mar 9, 2015 at 12:42 | comment | added | user3082 | Actually, kuru is only caused because one person had the prions. If you didn't have a point source infection (ie: a clean population), you don't get that disease (ie: no kuru). | |
| Mar 9, 2015 at 10:40 | history | edited | Søren D. Ptæus | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 22 characters in body
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| Mar 9, 2015 at 10:34 | review | First posts | |||
| Mar 9, 2015 at 11:17 | |||||
| Mar 9, 2015 at 10:33 | history | answered | Søren D. Ptæus | CC BY-SA 3.0 |