212 Ebola messages in my mailbox...

[Francisco Muril Zerbini]

...and only 3 deal with what is, to me, the most important question 
regarding Ebola: where does it come from ???? What's its natural host, 
and how does it jump from the natural host to humans ?

I think there are a bunch of viruses out there that are at least as nasty
as Ebola: Lassa, Machupo, Junin, Muerto Canyon. But for some reason people
don't seem do be as afraid of these as they are of Ebola. I think that's
because we know where they come from, and that gives us the impression
that we can control them. But the Filoviruses have this misterious
component to them, we have no idea where they come from. I'm pretty sure 
that at the moment we learn they infect, say, some kind of rodent, much 
of this paranoia will go away.

I am fascinated with this "emerging viruses" idea. The idea that human 
activities are creating opportunities for all these microbes to jump into 
a new species (us). But all the speculation and paranoia that has been 
going on here in the last few days is really starting to get on my 
nerves. 

Murilo

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| Murilo Zerbini                   | Out of 3,000,000,000 DNA nucleotides, |
| Dep. of Plant Pathology          | human beings and chimpanzees have     |
| University of California, Davis  | 2,999,400,000 in common.              |
| fmzerbini at ucdavis.edu            |                                       | 
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