round-t-w-o:

plenoptic07:

weavemama:

weavemama:

It was nice knowin y'all

@ science side of tumblr,, ALL JOKES ASIDE WE REALLY NEED YALL TO TELL US IF WE’RE GONNA BE OKAY OR NOT

By “diseases,” they mean microbes (MICROBES, not the same as PATHOGENS), that were living their merry lives in water when it began to freeze over.

Yes, we are going to be okay, at least as far as these little friends are concerned. The odds of a microbe that evolved in an aquatic environment THOUSANDS of years ago suddenly up and adapting to infect a human system as soon as it’s thawed are basically zilch. (The megaviridae [big ass viruses] that are the actual subject of the above clickbait infected ancient amoeba. It would take a TREMENDOUS amount of time and selection pressure for these viruses to learn to infect human systems, even by viral time scales.)

You SHOULD be worried about deforestation, especially in rain forests, which has the potential to release microbes that are more than adapted to mammalian systems and are generally happy to make a zoonotic (animal to human) jump, especially those that primarily infect simians. The major hemorrhagic fevers (Ebola, Marburg) were more than likely first exposed to humans after major deforestation.

Wow im so glad at least someone in this craphole of a website is smart and can educate my dumb ass.