Can you still remember being called “idiot or stupid” by your teacher(s) or friend(s) during school days? Worse still, your biological parents labelled you stupid simply because you weren’t among the top students in your class. Of course, most of us accepted the fate as it was, and blamed it on gene or DNA, which in turn passed the ball back to our parents (*grin*). But now, we know the stupidity is caused by a virus – Chlorovirus ATCV-1.
Humans’ bodies contain trillions of bacteria, viruses and fungi – most are harmless. Thus, for this reason, scientists or biologists rarely investigate them. Now that the experts have begun studying them for the first time, they found some surprising discoveries. While undertaking an unrelated study into throat microbes, scientists at Johns Hopkins Medical School and the University of Nebraska stumbled virus that makes us “stupid”.
Chlorovirus ATCV-1, the virus in question, is normally found in freshwater algae. However, the researchers found DNA in the throats of healthy individuals that matched the DNA of virus Chlorovirus ATCV-1. Dr Robert Yolken, a virologist who led the study, said while many physiological differences are encoded in the set of genes each inherits from parents, some of these differences can be caused by various types of micro-organisms.
Of the 92 participants in the study, a staggering 40 tested positive for the virus via throat swabs and also performed worse in certain intelligence and attention tests. They then confirmed their findings in tests on mice. Giving the virus to mice resulted in a decrease in recognition memory and other brain functions, the experiment found. Somehow, the tests revealed the virus broke through the blood or brain barrier and changed the activity of some genes in the brains of the mice.
The genes affected including those producing dopamine – a vital hormone which influences memory, spatial awareness, emotion and pleasure. Actually, it was professor James Van Etten, a biologist from the University of Nebraska who first identified the virus in algae 30 years ago. But nobody suspect such virus exist in humans’ throat and affect stupidity. Interestingly, Chloroviruses are very common among inland bodies of fresh water such as lakes and ponds, but swimmers are not directly affected though.
Published in the “Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences”, Dr. Robert Yolken further added that unlike Ebola or influenza, people have been carrying Chlorovirus ATCV-1 for a very long time undetected, until now. Typically, Chloroviruses are an unusual sort of plant virus targeting algae. In fact, they’re among the largest plant viruses known to humans, with up to 600 protein-encoding genes.
Apparently, scientists are still trying to figure out the specific source of infection. We know, most of you would probably suggest that the same stupidity patterns are found on politicians as well (*grin*). George Bush, Tony Blair, Najib Razak, Ibrahim Ali, Barack Obama, Liow Tiong Lai are some personalities who could be infected by Chlorovirus ATCV-1. If the scientists could create stupid mice, how hard it is to inject these politicians with more of such virus and verify if they become stupider, right (*tongue-in-cheek*)?
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November 10th, 2014 by financetwitter
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