mad cow disease facts !

Hii. I hope you're all doing well. this is my first blog entry !! i'm really not sure what to write about, so here are some facts about mad cow disease ! <3

- mad cow disease is caused by prions. prions are misfolded proteins that cause normal proteins to misfold and cause brain damage! prions are really terrifying because they're not a living organism (like bacterias) and don't contain any kind of genetic material (like viruses). prions are very hard to destroy, as radiation doesn't work on them. formaldehyde or ethanol doesn't kill them either !! scary stuff.

- mad cow disease was formerly known as bovine spongiform encephalopathy ! in humans it manifests as variant creutzfeldt-jakob disease!

- cows have several telltale symptoms !: weird posture, the cows get either nervous and anxious or aggressive :(, weight loss, the cows produce less milk and it gets harder for them to get up and walk ! sadly as it is a fatal condition it slowly destroys the brain and the central nervous system (the spinal cord).

- the first major outbreak was in the uk in the 1980s and 1990s. sadly, over four million cattle were slaughtered and 178 people died after contracting variant creutzfeldt-jakobs after eating infected beef :'(

i hope you found these interesting ! in the next entry i'll talk about variant creutzfeldt-jakobs! baiii have a nice day !!