Selecting for kuru resistant cannibals

I'm trying to decide what to think of this. On one hand resistance to kuru it's a hopeful sign. On the other hand, the mere existence of a disease that turns you into a laughing zombie could put a damper on your next mortuary feast.

Selecting for kuru resistant cannibals
New Scientist reports on a new study on how a gene that gives protection against the deadly brain disease kuru became more common in people exposed to the condition through their cannibalistic tradition of eating the bodies of dead relatives.

Kuru is a prion disease, meaning the damage is caused by a poorly arranged or folded protein molecule which can trigger the same damaging changes in other proteins it comes into contact with.

The condition is related to what we know as 'mad cow disease' and causes a distinctive form of shaking, brain degeneration and eventually leads to death. It was restricted to the South Fore people of Papua New Guinea who seemed to pass on the condition by their tradition of to eating deceased relatives at mortuary feasts.

This new study shows that over time a new variant of the PRNP gene emerged in the population which gave protection against kuru.

Just to be safe, you might want to scratch brains-in-oyster-sauce from the Thanksgiving menu.

When Zombies Attack!

TimesOnline has some important news for us :

The attached study, he said, highlighted "a problem we should wake up to -- this paper shows only the harshest control measures would give us a chance." Just what might this terrifying new threat be?

In my eagerness for a story, I hadn't noticed that Neil had added a smiley face at the end of his email. And when I opened the attachment, I discovered a paper entitled: "When Zombies Attack!: Mathematical Modelling of an Outbreak of Zombie Infection".

Move over swine flu. The zombies are coming...

[Image LaughingSquid]

Scary stuff, but even worse, the first commenter writes ...

I would just like to comment about the example of Zombies from '28 Days Later'.

They weren't actually Zombies; In the movie they are listed as the Infected. Zombies in the traditional sense cannot starve to death while the Infected in '28 Days Later' can in fact starve as seen in the ending scene.
[emphasis added]

[RantMode=ON]
This just kills me. There is no way in which the movie 28 Days Later does not completely satisfy all aspects of the zombie movie genre. A few seconds of emaciated, and more importantly [IIRC, 'cause ain't watching that dog again] partially dismembered ZOMBIES at the end does not make it not-a-zombie=movie.
[RantMode=OFF]
[Hat Tip to the Sciencepunk]

Zombies!! RUN!!!!

Actually, given the number of drivers I encounter on my commute that behave as if their brains have been eaten, this sort of warning is probably a good idea. [Hat Tip to Mike the Yeti]