Sciencespeaking topic
If a flu virus kills its carrier too fast it can't spread, because its victim dies before contacting anyone. So the most 'successful' virus isn't the one that kills you but the one that makes you mildly ill and keeps you moving around. Why are lethality and transmission enemies of each other?
— virulence-transmission tradeoff / evolutionary epidemiology
practice with this topic
Set the timer (5-30 min), take 20 seconds of prep if you like, start talking. Jot your thoughts onto the sticky-note board.
similar topics
- A honeybee works for the hive and gives up its own reproduction. If evolution says 'every creature spreads its own genes,' how did this sacrifice survive? Or is sacrifice itself a selfish calculation?
- When a bacterium tries to swim through water, the water feels as sticky as honey to it. The same water feels like water to us. Why does water's 'personality' change when your size changes?
- Runner's high: in prolonged exercise the brain releases endocannabinoids that create a lightness and pleasure. If this feeling once attributed to endorphins is actually another system, why does pushing past the pain threshold make us happy?
- Antibiotics don't work on viruses, yet they're still prescribed: giving antibiotics for the flu feeds resistance. Why do we want them even knowing they won't work?
- The bigger the crowd, the less likely anyone is to help a person who has fallen; everyone assumes 'someone else will.' So a crowd leaves you not safer but more alone. Why do numbers evaporate responsibility instead of increasing it?