Bats have become newly infamous as reservoirs of deadly viruses. In addition to hosting an ancestral version of the MERS virus, which has caused repeated outbreaks in people, bats also harbor very close relatives of the ones that caused the 2003 SARS outbreak and today's COVID-19 pandemic. They are natural hosts for Hendra, Nipah and Marburg viruses—all of which can be deadly in people—and they are the suspected reservoir of the Ebola virus that has killed thousands in multiple outbreaks in Africa.
Bats can also host a diverse range of influenza viruses as well as relatives of the human-infecting hepatitis C virus. And research suggests that some viruses that today infect only people, like measles and mumps, had their evolutionary origins in bats.
Yet despite the long list of bat-dwelling viruses, the animals don't seem to be bothered by their many invisible inhabitants. And scientists want to know why. Today, a growing number of them suspect that the key lies in special features of the bat immune system—ones that spark responses to viral invasion that are very different from what goes on in people. "It's very intriguing," Banerjee says. "I wake up thinking about it every day. Why do bats have this immune response that's so different from ours and so different from other mammals?"
[...] "Rather than trying to reinvent the wheel, we could learn from what evolution has developed in a bat, where the outcome is not disease but it's something that enables survival upon infection with a particular virus," says cellular immunologist Judith Mandl of McGill University in Montreal. "If we figure that out, then maybe we can apply the same principles and modulate the immune response in humans."
Journal Reference:
Janelle S. Ayres and David S. SchneiderTolerance of Infections, (DOI: 10.1146/annurev-immunol-020711-075030)
(Score: 3, Insightful) by PinkyGigglebrain on Monday July 06 2020, @06:05PM (5 children)
as if Bats didn't have enough trouble from Humans already.
rumor : "5G causes COVID!"
Human response : burn 5G towers and lynch 5g techs
Now we have
Science : Bats are the source of viruses deadly to Humans.
Human response :
this is not going to turn out well for bats.
"Beware those who would deny you Knowledge, For in their hearts they dream themselves your Master."
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday July 06 2020, @06:09PM (2 children)
Well, closest relatives to bats called vampires were exterminated long time ago; just wait a moment...
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06 2020, @06:17PM
#BatLivesMatter
(Score: 2, Funny) by fustakrakich on Monday July 06 2020, @06:38PM
Well, closest relatives to bats called vampires were exterminated long time ago
No they weren't. They were elected!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Tuesday July 07 2020, @12:39PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2) by Aegis on Tuesday July 07 2020, @02:38PM
Lucky for us the folks burning down 5G towers think science is fake.
(Score: 2) by legont on Monday July 06 2020, @06:07PM
<sarcasm>Off course, scientists never thought about it before</sarcasm>
"Wealth is the relentless enemy of understanding" - John Kenneth Galbraith.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday July 06 2020, @06:12PM
I'm no veterinarian, but aren't there also plenty of animal diseases where humans are the reservoirs?
Like isn't it true feline leukemia virus get transmitted from cat to human to cat but its utterly harmless to humans? Maybe its just contact as opposed to infection, donno.
(Score: 1) by MIRV888 on Monday July 06 2020, @06:27PM (1 child)
Sounds like we have some studying to do on bat's immune systems.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @02:32AM
Current information suggests that 8 of the 15 temperate diseases probably or possibly reached humans from domestic animals (diphtheria, influenza A, measles, mumps, pertussis, rotavirus, smallpox, tuberculosis);
three more probably reached us from apes (hepatitis B) or rodents (plague, typhus);
the other four (rubella, syphilis, tetanus, typhoid) came from still-unknown sources.
Thus, the rise of agriculture starting 11,000 years ago played multiple roles in the evolution of animal pathogens into human pathogens
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature05775 [nature.com]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06 2020, @07:08PM (1 child)
No way, Jose. Peacefull coexistence with viruses is out of the question. Parasites must be eradicated. It's the Human way !
We already did it with smallpox. That's one down, just 678436586485758 more to go !
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday July 06 2020, @11:34PM
Is that a statistically significant absence of small-valued digits?
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06 2020, @08:45PM (4 children)
The lab in Wuhan, China altered a virus commanly found in horseshoe bats so that it would not trigger an immune response in mammals. Guess how well that worked out when it leaked out of the lab...
(Score: 0, Offtopic) by Bot on Monday July 06 2020, @09:00PM
"I didn't leak out, I was EVICTED!", signed, the coronavirus.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 4, Informative) by PartTimeZombie on Monday July 06 2020, @09:39PM (2 children)
Just because some weirdo on Fox News says something, doesn't mean it's true.
Those people do not have your best interests at heart.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday July 06 2020, @10:26PM
Have you heard of the latest disease?
FIBD -- Fox Induced Brain Damage
Still being studied, not known yet if it can be cured.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @02:35AM
That was based on the scientist describing their own work. No news networks were involved.
(Score: 2) by Bot on Monday July 06 2020, @08:58PM (1 child)
>And scientists want to know why
Dunno, try the obvious. What do bats different?
1. THEY SLEEP UPSIDE DOWN, GET UP LATE
2. THEY DON'T GET VAXXED
3. THEY DON'T HAVE A FINANCIAL SYSTEM MANAGING THEIR FOOD SUPPLY AND HEALTH
Experiment away, science people!!! Oh wait the financial system manages you too. Too bad.
Account abandoned.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 07 2020, @12:36AM
Your first two points apply to millennials too.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by JoeMerchant on Monday July 06 2020, @09:01PM
Lightweight, high energy bodies, living crammed together by the millions in tight cave spaces, breathing the dust and fume of their own feces half of every day, I'd say that if bats didn't have rather better disease handling systems they would have died out long ago. Kind of like Europeans with smallpox (among other things) vs the early Americans, but perhaps a couple of orders of magnitude more extreme.
Україна досі не є частиною Росії Слава Україні🌻 https://www.pravda.com.ua/eng/news/2023/06/24/7408365/