Recent comments in /f/askscience

iamamuttonhead t1_jdogsb9 wrote

Reply to comment by h3rbi74 in Why does tetanus vaccination lasts longer than influenza vaccination? by E-C-A

The one vaccine you mentioned. This vaccine (or the versions that work) uses the approach of live attenuated fungus which may face regulatory hurdles in humans.

The live attenuated approach is being used in this not-yet-approved one:

https://www.aaha.org/publications/newstat/articles/2023-1/lessons-from-horticulture-pioneering-the-first-antifungal-vaccine/

I believe, though, that at least in the U.S. there is not a single approved anti-fungal vaccine for humans.

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h3rbi74 t1_jdofci1 wrote

Reply to comment by iamamuttonhead in Why does tetanus vaccination lasts longer than influenza vaccination? by E-C-A

There have been antifungal veterinary vaccines for a long time (specifically targeting “ringworm”) but their efficacy was debatable so they are no longer widely used in the US, but are still used in some parts of the world and for some industrially farmed animals instead of pets. I am old enough to remember the pharmaceutical reps hyping it up for cats (because it is a PAIN to treat/eliminate in an animal that does NOT want to take repeated medicated baths or even moreso the old fashioned lime-sulfur dips!) but nothing much ever came of it and it just quietly disappeared.

Scroll down for brief discussion of fungal veterinary vaccines: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7348621/

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Dr_Baby_Man t1_jdo9p5x wrote

Reply to comment by thagreentee in Does lactose malabsorption mean we do not get nutrition from consuming dairy? It is said that 70% of world population has lactose malabsorption by ayykayy

It would depend on how fast it moves through the person. It can be rather fast, making any nutrient absorption rather minimal. On the other hand, others are less affected. Lactase deficiency is a threshold, with different people able to tolerate different quantities of lactose before they become symptomatic.

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jawshoeaw t1_jdo97ah wrote

Reply to comment by iayork in Why does tetanus vaccination lasts longer than influenza vaccination? by E-C-A

It may be a little of both as the saying goes. Studies of vaccine antibody persistence in a few diseases suggest that if you’re not regularly exposed to the organism in question, the antibodies fade faster, sometimes much faster than in communities where the organism is endemic. Even though the people are not getting reinfected at least not obviously. So (and this is just my idle speculation) since influenza famously does as you said , drift , maybe we don’t get the benefit of reawakening the vaccine with repeated exposure. But back to actual science: it remains a mystery why influenza vaccines fade so incredibly fast , sometimes within a month it’s starting to fade.

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Blakut t1_jdo7dkp wrote

Reply to comment by _AlreadyTaken_ in The two retinas are tied/linked together in the brain. Are they tied 1:1, so that each retinal point corresponds to the same retinal point in the other eye? I.e., each retinal point from one eye shares the same binocular neuron with its counterpoint in the other eye? by ch1214ch

afaik the first convolutional neural networks in AI were modelled to mimic the retina (cows in particular? idk)

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Blakut t1_jdo76jp wrote

Reply to comment by Zondagsrijder in The two retinas are tied/linked together in the brain. Are they tied 1:1, so that each retinal point corresponds to the same retinal point in the other eye? I.e., each retinal point from one eye shares the same binocular neuron with its counterpoint in the other eye? by ch1214ch

yes, but it's not the right or left eye, it's the left or right side of each eye. So if you cover the left side of both eyes or the right side of both eyes, you isolate one hemisphere or the other.

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Kalanthropos t1_jdo4jwo wrote

Reply to comment by zekromNLR in What happens when we die? by darsenalmex11

That's the thing, it raises a lot of philosophical questions. How do we define "death" if we can maintain the unity and function of the organism by supplanting its systems? What is the appropriate use of this technology?

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TwistedBrother t1_jdo0n8d wrote

Reply to comment by Zondagsrijder in The two retinas are tied/linked together in the brain. Are they tied 1:1, so that each retinal point corresponds to the same retinal point in the other eye? I.e., each retinal point from one eye shares the same binocular neuron with its counterpoint in the other eye? by ch1214ch

Not really and there’s some fascinating experiments to present as such. The brain still makes sense of itself as a single entity but yeah you can do things like cover one eye and see the thing but not be able to find the word for it until you see it with the other eye, if recall my documentary correctly.

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