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Virus Talk with Josh and Chuck · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Welcome to you Stuff you Should Know from how Stuff
0:04
Speaker 1: Works dot Com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm
0:12
Speaker 1: Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant, There's Jerry uh
0:17
Speaker 1: And this is Stuff you Should Know, featuring my enormous
0:20
Speaker 1: dot up nose and how appropriate. Yeah, well that was
0:24
Speaker 1: one of the reasons why I wanted to do this.
0:26
Speaker 1: I figured I'm a little sick right now. Yeah, yeah, still,
0:31
Speaker 1: and uh, I wanted to know more about the monster inside.
0:33
Speaker 1: That's right, Like, I'm not feeling great and the knowledge
0:37
Speaker 1: is power, like we always say, exactly, Like, just from
0:39
Speaker 1: researching this, I was like starting to break a sweat
0:42
Speaker 1: and tremble and I was like, I'm getting better, and
0:45
Speaker 1: then I passed out and hit my head. Yeah, and
0:47
Speaker 1: I didn't have enough time to finish studying. So good,
0:50
Speaker 1: I'm gonna have to make a lot of this up,
0:52
Speaker 1: Chuck cool. Yeah, we've covered we covered ebola recently, and
0:57
Speaker 1: we are definitely going to cover HIV at some point.
0:59
Speaker 1: We just haven't gotten around to it. Yeah, but both
1:01
Speaker 1: of those are viruses. So there's another one we talked
1:03
Speaker 1: about that seemed to come up in this. I don't
1:05
Speaker 1: remember what it was. But um, the herpies. No, no,
1:09
Speaker 1: we know they've talked about herpes. Um, well, you know,
1:12
Speaker 1: not mixed company. What what was it? I don't remember,
1:15
Speaker 1: but there was definitely microbiome maybe yeah, no, I don't
1:20
Speaker 1: remember what it was. But we've talked about viruses and
1:22
Speaker 1: viral infections. But to me, I think viruses are one
1:25
Speaker 1: of the most fascinating things on the entire planet. They're jerks, like,
1:31
Speaker 1: we don't know where they came from. We don't quite
1:33
Speaker 1: know how to classify them because they really kind of
1:36
Speaker 1: operate on the line between a living in a non
1:39
Speaker 1: living thing. Yeah, this article said, like most scientists agree,
1:43
Speaker 1: but I found a lot of people that said that
1:46
Speaker 1: they're not living things too, So yeah, um, but who
1:49
Speaker 1: cares really, They still definitely have an effect. You know.
1:52
Speaker 1: The weird thing is about virus is why some people
1:57
Speaker 1: say it's living in some people say it's not living.
2:00
Speaker 1: Is that it to to be a living thing, you
2:03
Speaker 1: have to have something like arms. Yeah, you have to
2:08
Speaker 1: have arms. Rocks rocks don't have arms, Nope, point proven, Um,
2:14
Speaker 1: you have to have you have to be able to
2:16
Speaker 1: carry out the processes that keep you alive. Yeah, like
2:21
Speaker 1: you a cell a cell is the smallest living organism.
2:27
Speaker 1: It's the smallest possible living organism because you get lower
2:30
Speaker 1: than that and you have maybe the things that make
2:32
Speaker 1: up a cell, but they can't sustain themselves. A cell
2:34
Speaker 1: can sustain itself, and things can be made up of
2:37
Speaker 1: cells like us, and therefore we are a living organism.
2:42
Speaker 1: The cells that make us up are living organisms. Plants
2:44
Speaker 1: are living organisms. But viruses they don't have any means
2:48
Speaker 1: of carrying out the processes that keep them alive, which
2:53
Speaker 1: doesn't matter because they're not alive, But more important, they
2:56
Speaker 1: don't have any processes that allow them to reproduce. Yeah,
2:59
Speaker 1: they're like by themselves that they're not worth very much.
3:03
Speaker 1: They need to glom on. They're always gloming on to
3:06
Speaker 1: everyone else's junk exactly, which is basically what a virus does.
3:10
Speaker 1: But for something as simple as the viruses, and we'll
3:13
Speaker 1: talk about how simple they are in a second, they
3:16
Speaker 1: have devastating effects when they do start to really get busy,
3:22
Speaker 1: you know. So Chuck I was saying, like, they don't
3:25
Speaker 1: know exactly where viruses came from. They know they're very old.
3:29
Speaker 1: But there there are a couple of theories. My favorite
3:31
Speaker 1: one probably the one that's right is um that they
3:35
Speaker 1: were former bits of cells that basically evolved into freelance renegades. Yeah,
3:43
Speaker 1: which explains why certain viruses fit with certain cells. Well,
3:48
Speaker 1: that makes sense. So they could have just been basically
3:52
Speaker 1: like drifting genetic material that that evolved enough to say
3:57
Speaker 1: I'm gonna learn to reproduce by hijacking renegade drifters. Yep,
4:02
Speaker 1: So are you saying that viruses or John Rambo? Pretty much?
4:06
Speaker 1: So let's talk about like what makes a virus? Uh? Yeah, Well,
4:10
Speaker 1: like you said, a cell is is on its own
4:12
Speaker 1: It can do its own thing. Viruses cannot. Viruses are
4:15
Speaker 1: super tiny, about one millionth of an inch long, which
4:19
Speaker 1: is a thousand times smaller than bacteria, which are smaller
4:23
Speaker 1: than human cells. Most of them. There are some viruses
4:26
Speaker 1: that are actually larger than the average sized bacteria, but
4:29
Speaker 1: for the most part they are smaller, which is still
4:31
Speaker 1: super tiny. It is like you need an electron microscope
4:34
Speaker 1: to view these bad boys, right. Uh. And they can
4:37
Speaker 1: infect just about any living thing. As a matter of fact,
4:41
Speaker 1: any living thing could be theoretically infected by a virus
4:45
Speaker 1: like a bacteria can get a viral infection. Man, that's crazy,
4:48
Speaker 1: isn't that I don't se can get viruses, yeah, donkeys, Yeah,
4:55
Speaker 1: all sorts of stuff, the whole the whole gamut from
4:58
Speaker 1: seaweed to donkeys, the virus itself. If you just want
5:03
Speaker 1: to look at what that that little tiny particle is is, Uh,
5:07
Speaker 1: it's a veryon Is that how we're going to say
5:10
Speaker 1: that viron viron? Yeah? Why didn't they just leave the
5:14
Speaker 1: second eye environed? Yeah? I don't. Basically, what it is
5:18
Speaker 1: is a set of genetic instructions. Can be either DNA
5:23
Speaker 1: or RNA, can't be both. Uh, And it's you know,
5:26
Speaker 1: it's just instructions, that's all it is. Well, that's that's
5:29
Speaker 1: the nucleic acid that is part of a VIRON. Like
5:32
Speaker 1: a VIRON is like a particle, it's like an individual
5:35
Speaker 1: viral particle. Yeah, And part of that is the nucleic acid. Yeah.
5:40
Speaker 1: And that's surrounded by capsid, which is just a protein
5:42
Speaker 1: coating to protect it. And then sometimes if it's an
5:46
Speaker 1: envelope virus, that will also have an envelope around that capsid.
5:51
Speaker 1: If it's naked it doesn't need or because it just
5:53
Speaker 1: doesn't have that other protein code, right, And the enveloped
5:56
Speaker 1: ones are enveloped with this um a lipid fat of
6:00
Speaker 1: some sort. Um. But for a naked virus, it's can.
6:05
Speaker 1: It's made up of two things. It's got it's it's
6:08
Speaker 1: nucleic acid and it's protein coding that protects the nucleic acid.
6:13
Speaker 1: So it's not just nucleic acid floating around, that's right.
6:16
Speaker 1: And um, the nucleic acid is like you said, it's
6:20
Speaker 1: basically just a blueprint for how to make more viruses.
6:24
Speaker 1: Because if speaking teleologically, a virus is its whole purpose
6:30
Speaker 1: is to make more viruses. That's all it cares about.
6:34
Speaker 1: And you can say, well, that applies to just about
6:36
Speaker 1: any living organism if you get down to the bare bones. Yeah,
6:41
Speaker 1: with the virus, it's like that's it, man, it's not
6:44
Speaker 1: doing anything else. It doesn't care about playing cards. It
6:46
Speaker 1: doesn't want to do anything but reproduce. It make you sick, Yeah,
6:50
Speaker 1: pretty much. Uh. Their their shape varies a lot, but
6:55
Speaker 1: there are basically three types, helical or hell equal. It's
6:59
Speaker 1: like tube. You got your polyhedral, so it's sort of
7:02
Speaker 1: like a soccer ball, and then you have your complex
7:06
Speaker 1: shapes and they are complex there. You know, they can
7:10
Speaker 1: look crazy, they can have tails, they can have crazy
7:12
Speaker 1: looking spider legs like the what they have both which
7:15
Speaker 1: one looks like the Apollo lunar Lander. I'm gonna go
7:19
Speaker 1: with complex for sure, but yeah, yeah, I don't think
7:23
Speaker 1: it could be polyhedral. It's startling how much it looks
7:25
Speaker 1: like that. Yeah, it looks like it was made to
7:29
Speaker 1: look like a cool little lunar Lander, or that the
7:32
Speaker 1: lunar Lander was modeled after the virus, which didn't make
7:36
Speaker 1: much because they wanted to infect the Moon. Two. You
7:40
Speaker 1: may have astronaut jokes. Uh so, unlike cells that can
7:45
Speaker 1: do their own thing, viruses don't have enzymes like cells
7:48
Speaker 1: do that basically allowed to operate, uh, independently as their
7:52
Speaker 1: own little units. Some do. Some viruses contain just enough
7:57
Speaker 1: enzymes to take their DNA or their RNA and and
8:01
Speaker 1: do something with it to basically primate to be transcribed
8:05
Speaker 1: or something like that. Or they have enzymes that go
8:08
Speaker 1: hijack the enzymes in the cell. So some do. Most
8:13
Speaker 1: don't write. But um yeah, that's that's the whole point
8:16
Speaker 1: of infecting a host cell. If all the virus wants
8:20
Speaker 1: to do is reproduce, but it can't reproduce, that's where
8:23
Speaker 1: the host cell comes in. That's right, They basically move
8:25
Speaker 1: into the factory with and say we're going to use
8:29
Speaker 1: your equipment. They're like, there's gonna be some big changes
8:33
Speaker 1: around here because there's a new sheriff in town. And
8:38
Speaker 1: the virus although all rirus just don't kill people, we
8:41
Speaker 1: should point that out. No, And so it depending on
8:44
Speaker 1: what kind of virus it is, whether it's naked or enveloped. UM,
8:50
Speaker 1: it will attach itself to the to the host cell
8:54
Speaker 1: and either inject it. If it's naked, it has to
8:56
Speaker 1: stay outside the host cell and basically in x it's
9:00
Speaker 1: um genetic material into the host cell. Or if it's enveloped,
9:06
Speaker 1: that fat lipid coding that that makes it an enveloped
9:11
Speaker 1: virus basically connects to the host cell's own fat lipid
9:16
Speaker 1: coding and that protein codd virus can basically slip through,
9:21
Speaker 1: just absorb right into the cell and say tada when
9:25
Speaker 1: it makes it on the inside. Yeah. Is that what
9:27
Speaker 1: an antigen is? I think that's the protein that has
9:31
Speaker 1: to match like the antigen looks for another like protein
9:36
Speaker 1: so it can get that type bond and if they
9:39
Speaker 1: and if they're not similar enough, they can't bond and
9:41
Speaker 1: infect that cell. Be wrong. In that is that right?
9:43
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's the it sounds right, and
9:47
Speaker 1: the reason it sounds right because I saw elsewhere in
9:49
Speaker 1: the research that, um, that's why viruses go after specific
9:54
Speaker 1: kinds of cells there there. Um, that's they recognize the
9:58
Speaker 1: type of cells that they're capable of infecting. Right, and say,
10:01
Speaker 1: I can bind to you very tightly, my friend. Exactly,
10:04
Speaker 1: So let's dance exactly all right, right after this message,
10:07
Speaker 1: we are going to get down to the nitty gritty
10:09
Speaker 1: on what happens once they have bound themselves to that cell.
10:22
Speaker 1: All right, Josh, they moved into the cell. They like
10:25
Speaker 1: the looks of it. It's a nice open concept floor plan,
10:29
Speaker 1: which everyone loves these days. What happens from there, well,
10:33
Speaker 1: it depends on the virus. So let's say it was
10:35
Speaker 1: one that injected it. It's got its genetic material floating around.
10:39
Speaker 1: Maybe there's an enzyme that's assisting the genetic material, or
10:42
Speaker 1: if the virus itself showed up, um, it's releasing its
10:46
Speaker 1: genetic material all over the place. But basically what happened
10:49
Speaker 1: that sounds pretty cross. Well, it is pretty gross. It
10:53
Speaker 1: happens exactly like it like you think, yeah, um, but
10:56
Speaker 1: the Once inside the cell, you'll see a lot that
11:02
Speaker 1: the virus hijacks the cells um processes. Yeah, like hey,
11:07
Speaker 1: we need to use your deal because we don't have
11:09
Speaker 1: our own exactly. Um, they're not. The reason people use
11:13
Speaker 1: the word hijack is because it really gets the point across,
11:16
Speaker 1: but it's also because science isn't on how viruses do it,
11:22
Speaker 1: and they they What they think basically is that if
11:25
Speaker 1: there's an accompanying enzyme or something, the enzymes basically wait
11:31
Speaker 1: for a line of other enzymes the cell zone enzymes
11:35
Speaker 1: to go past, and then it grabs the last one
11:37
Speaker 1: in the line that old trick, hits it over the head,
11:41
Speaker 1: hypnotizes it basically, and then sends it back out to
11:46
Speaker 1: go recruit other enzymes, and then all of a sudden,
11:49
Speaker 1: the cell is it's enzymes, it's workers. If you think
11:52
Speaker 1: of the enzymes is like the workers in the cell um.
11:55
Speaker 1: They're all working for this virus, and the cells like
11:59
Speaker 1: what the hecks going on? It's too late. The enzymes
12:02
Speaker 1: are focused on transcribing the DNA, which ultimately just makes
12:08
Speaker 1: more DNA or RNA for the virus, and then assembling
12:11
Speaker 1: it with proteins that the enzymes are now making, so
12:14
Speaker 1: they're now making more and more and more viruses. It's
12:17
Speaker 1: a hostile takeover. It is very much a hostile takeover.
12:20
Speaker 1: That's one way to go. There's another thing called a retrovirus,
12:23
Speaker 1: which I'm a huge fan of. Some of the worst
12:25
Speaker 1: viruses around a retroviruses, which is ironic because they actually
12:29
Speaker 1: have the um softest impact on the host cell. But
12:33
Speaker 1: a retrovirus goes in very quietly, hangs around and yeah,
12:40
Speaker 1: because HIV is a retrovirus, UM, so is uh. I
12:45
Speaker 1: think a flu flues a retrovirus too, I think um.
12:49
Speaker 1: But it goes in and it it just inserts its
12:51
Speaker 1: DNA into the cells DNA. So it's like, yeah, go
12:56
Speaker 1: about your business or whatever. But now there's this extra
12:59
Speaker 1: sequence that when you go over it and you transcribe
13:02
Speaker 1: it and you do what this this um DNA or
13:05
Speaker 1: this genetic material is telling you to do to make
13:08
Speaker 1: you're gonna also, as a byproduct, spit out um viruses.
13:12
Speaker 1: So it's just duplicating itself, it is. So that's there's
13:16
Speaker 1: a lot of different things that can go on. But
13:19
Speaker 1: it's like you said, there's a hostile takeover, or the
13:22
Speaker 1: cell is tricked into making more viruses. But what happens
13:26
Speaker 1: is more and more and more and more viruses are
13:28
Speaker 1: being made within the host cell, which can be pretty
13:32
Speaker 1: bad for the hostel. Ultimately, well yeah, because eventually the
13:36
Speaker 1: virus is gonna leave, and they can either if it's
13:38
Speaker 1: a naked virus, it'll bust out and just destroy the
13:41
Speaker 1: host cell and be like, hey, I'm tired of your
13:44
Speaker 1: little apartment. I'm just gonna burn it down because I'm
13:48
Speaker 1: my own thing now and I can live on my
13:50
Speaker 1: own um. Or if it's an envelope virus, and it'll
13:55
Speaker 1: just kind of pinch away and keep that protective cell
13:58
Speaker 1: membrane and just be like, well fine, I'll just take
14:01
Speaker 1: my stuff and then leave and you're free to do
14:03
Speaker 1: what you want. Right. Well, that's another reason why retroviruses
14:06
Speaker 1: are easy on the host cell is because all retroviruses
14:09
Speaker 1: are enveloped viruses. So these new newly made viruses just
14:14
Speaker 1: moved to the outside membrane and bud off. And then
14:19
Speaker 1: what happens when they bud off or when the cell
14:22
Speaker 1: breaks open because there's so many new viruses, it ruptures
14:26
Speaker 1: the cell. It's just pretty horrific if you think about it.
14:29
Speaker 1: UM all of a sudden, you're contagious. Yeah, and it's
14:35
Speaker 1: duplicating and spreading all throughout your body at a pretty
14:38
Speaker 1: rapid rate. Lots of these guys. So let's let's look
14:42
Speaker 1: at your well, let's look at you. For instance, what
14:45
Speaker 1: have you got right now? I got something some sort
14:48
Speaker 1: of viral infection, not the flu, probably, Yeah, you achy, fevery, no, no, feverish?
14:57
Speaker 1: I mean, uh so what do you What do I have? Doc? Well,
15:01
Speaker 1: I would say you have a cold, But I had
15:03
Speaker 1: a cold that that turned into a sinus infection. I
15:06
Speaker 1: may have one of those. From the color of the
15:08
Speaker 1: stuff that's coming out of my nose, I would say
15:10
Speaker 1: I probably have a sizes infection. Yes. Would you describe
15:13
Speaker 1: it as a khaki? Uh? I would describe it as
15:16
Speaker 1: a drab all of oh Man, way worse than khaki.
15:21
Speaker 1: When I was sick a couple of weeks ago, I
15:23
Speaker 1: had some serious, bright, bright, almost fluorescent yellow coming out,
15:28
Speaker 1: which is all very gratifying to get rid of, either
15:32
Speaker 1: with your netty potter just blowing your nose or whatever.
15:34
Speaker 1: I've been potting like a madman. Yeah, you know, you
15:36
Speaker 1: can overdo that when you're sick. Apparently, Yeah, I can
15:40
Speaker 1: imagine because this just the salt. Too much salt up there,
15:45
Speaker 1: and I think just fluid, like unless you really really
15:48
Speaker 1: get it all out. Uh, it's better like you need
15:51
Speaker 1: to dry out completely in between. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
15:54
Speaker 1: definitely all right. We'll just take two of these and
15:58
Speaker 1: come back and see me next week. Well you're a
16:00
Speaker 1: ignosing what was going on? Well, you've got a cold,
16:02
Speaker 1: I think, um, but let's say you're in the office.
16:06
Speaker 1: I think we should make this as real as possible.
16:09
Speaker 1: I was. Let's say that I'm hanging out with my
16:11
Speaker 1: sweet little four year old niece, who herself has a cold.
16:15
Speaker 1: She the she the person. I don't want to name names,
16:19
Speaker 1: but I think she's that. She's on your list now.
16:23
Speaker 1: So alright, So your little niece probably sneezed or something,
16:27
Speaker 1: or just put her dirty little hands all over your
16:29
Speaker 1: face because she loves Uncle Josh. She she has her
16:32
Speaker 1: dad would not allow her to have dirty hands. Okay,
16:35
Speaker 1: I think she's probably confident around me. Uh. And what
16:39
Speaker 1: you probably did was inhaled a virus particle, and that
16:42
Speaker 1: probably attached to your the linings of your nasal passages,
16:46
Speaker 1: your sinuses, because apparently there's basically only three ways that
16:49
Speaker 1: a virus gets into your body. You inhale it uh,
16:53
Speaker 1: attaches to your mucous membranes like your nose or your
16:56
Speaker 1: gums or something, or enters through a break in skin.
17:00
Speaker 1: That's right, So your host cell is gonna break open,
17:04
Speaker 1: your virus is gonna move in there with and say
17:06
Speaker 1: I'm gonna use your equipment like we talked about. Then
17:09
Speaker 1: maybe travel to your bloodstream, travel to your lungs uh,
17:13
Speaker 1: and you're gonna end up getting let's say maybe one
17:16
Speaker 1: of the first signs as a running nose because you're
17:18
Speaker 1: losing cells in your sinuses and now that fluid is
17:21
Speaker 1: gonna be loosened up as a result. Yeah, the nasal,
17:25
Speaker 1: the literal cellular lining of my sinuses is being is
17:29
Speaker 1: rupturing it under attack. Because here's the thing. When you
17:32
Speaker 1: go through and look at like what a virus does,
17:34
Speaker 1: you're looking at what one individual virian is doing. You
17:39
Speaker 1: don't necessarily just pick up one individual viran. You can
17:42
Speaker 1: be exposed to many, many, many virians and they are
17:47
Speaker 1: each reproducing producing thousands more just in one cell. So
17:51
Speaker 1: all this is going on, it can have a pronounced effect,
17:54
Speaker 1: like if you just lost one cell your in your
17:58
Speaker 1: nasal lining. It's not gonna do much. You're probably never
18:01
Speaker 1: ever going to notice. But if you lose a ton
18:04
Speaker 1: of the cells at the same time, you're gonna have
18:06
Speaker 1: a runny nose. Yeah, or if it happens in your throat,
18:08
Speaker 1: you're gonna have a sore throat. That's right. That's just fluid.
18:12
Speaker 1: You know, it's attacking those cells in your throat and
18:15
Speaker 1: the lining, and it's dripping and just causing like a
18:19
Speaker 1: usually some sort of inflammation. Yeah. And those because those
18:22
Speaker 1: ruptured cells are being carried down by your nose juice
18:27
Speaker 1: to the back of your throat, which is turn That's
18:30
Speaker 1: what I was raised on. It's in turn um those juice, okay,
18:35
Speaker 1: which in turn u and they attach an attack to
18:39
Speaker 1: the cells lining your throat, and then this whole thing
18:42
Speaker 1: is just going on and on and on again. Yeah.
18:44
Speaker 1: If you've ever had aches and pains because of maybe
18:48
Speaker 1: a flu, that's because your muscle cells are being attacked.
18:52
Speaker 1: And it sucks because you don't know that this is
18:54
Speaker 1: going on at first, Like it's just this war being
18:57
Speaker 1: wags inside your body and you're like, you know, hey,
19:01
Speaker 1: I'm just going to the grocery store and I'm feeling
19:03
Speaker 1: pretty good, and by the time you start to feel
19:05
Speaker 1: it's too late, it is too late. I'm glad you
19:07
Speaker 1: brought that up because I did a don't be dumb
19:10
Speaker 1: on when you're actually contagious. Yeah, what's the final on that?
19:14
Speaker 1: So it depends on it, does it vary? The how
19:18
Speaker 1: long you're contagious varies, But when you start is a
19:22
Speaker 1: about a day before you start showing symptoms. So like,
19:27
Speaker 1: remember how I said, if you have one cell burst
19:30
Speaker 1: and and you're not gonna notice it, it's gonna take
19:33
Speaker 1: many many cells to burst before you finally have a
19:35
Speaker 1: sore throat. Well, while those things are bursting, after that
19:38
Speaker 1: first one bursts, you're contagious, buddy. So for a day
19:41
Speaker 1: before you even know you're sick, you're walking around infecting
19:46
Speaker 1: other people. With a cold, you go from the day
19:49
Speaker 1: before symptoms to about four days after. And with the flu,
19:53
Speaker 1: you go from the day before symptoms to five to
19:56
Speaker 1: seven days after. So you can still be it. It
20:00
Speaker 1: is true and people are like, I'm not contagious anymore.
20:02
Speaker 1: They're usually probably totally wrong, But say they're flu last
20:06
Speaker 1: eight days. If they say that on day eight, they're
20:09
Speaker 1: they're actually right. Most people say it by like day
20:12
Speaker 1: three or four or whatever that it's all right, Well
20:15
Speaker 1: they need to watch Don't be dumb. Josh's award winning
20:18
Speaker 1: web series so many awards, man, I think the next
20:23
Speaker 1: award is gonna win. Is the most divisive web series
20:26
Speaker 1: because half the people, more than half, I think, are like, man,
20:28
Speaker 1: this is the best thing ever. People are like, oh,
20:31
Speaker 1: good at why is Josh Acton so weird? And I'll
20:33
Speaker 1: just respond with, yeah, you don't get it, and I
20:37
Speaker 1: mean it's definitely not for everybody. I've learned. Well, it's
20:39
Speaker 1: very funny, I think, Uh sure, So all right, and
20:43
Speaker 1: we mentioned fever. We're going to talk about what that
20:45
Speaker 1: is actually doing inside your body right for this break.
20:51
Speaker 1: So it took. It turns out you asked me if
20:54
Speaker 1: I if I feel feverish, and I don't. Apparently my
20:57
Speaker 1: body is slacking on the immune response. Well, I think
21:00
Speaker 1: you don't always get the fever. But fever is a
21:03
Speaker 1: good thing because your body is wired to operate optimally
21:07
Speaker 1: at ninety eight point six. Even though I heard that
21:10
Speaker 1: was nine eight point seven, now is that right? Yeah,
21:12
Speaker 1: I heard that. The they kind of abandoned that as
21:14
Speaker 1: like an average body temperature because it varies enough between
21:18
Speaker 1: human beings that they're they're like, now it's this between
21:21
Speaker 1: this rather than point six. And if you don't have that,
21:24
Speaker 1: you're sick to somewhere in that range, let's say, uh,
21:28
Speaker 1: chemical reactions and basically anything going on your body just
21:32
Speaker 1: that's the temperature it likes. So when you get a fever,
21:34
Speaker 1: it's actually slowing all those processes down, including the virus
21:39
Speaker 1: is spread, because it's like, oh man, it's hot, I
21:42
Speaker 1: can't can't work as much, that's right, Uh, which is
21:46
Speaker 1: kind of a weird, indirect, roundabout way of slowing a
21:51
Speaker 1: fever down or slowing an infection down. Yeah, I mean,
21:54
Speaker 1: I guess if it works. So it's good to have
21:55
Speaker 1: a fever. It is good to have a fever, and
21:58
Speaker 1: it's it actually makes sense in strange way because some infections,
22:02
Speaker 1: some viruses attack the very cells that are meant to
22:07
Speaker 1: mount the immune response. Like remember a bola it goes
22:10
Speaker 1: right after like every immune response cell it can find.
22:14
Speaker 1: HIV goes after T cells, which attack and destroy foreign bodies,
22:18
Speaker 1: so to to slow them down and to slow the
22:22
Speaker 1: spread so that the immune response can continue and mount
22:26
Speaker 1: a full attack is kind of clever. Yeah, And and
22:29
Speaker 1: since you mentioned HIV, it's it's another scary one because
22:34
Speaker 1: it's one of those viruses that can just lay in
22:37
Speaker 1: wait and they even call it sleeping it some sometimes,
22:41
Speaker 1: you know, like it's not obvious you could have HIV
22:44
Speaker 1: and be spreading HIV without ever feeling any kind of
22:47
Speaker 1: sick or any kind of symptoms, and um, basically eventually
22:53
Speaker 1: that virus is gonna do its thing. You know, it
22:56
Speaker 1: could lay in wait for years even without without acting right.
23:00
Speaker 1: And then it depends on the virus. But they figure
23:03
Speaker 1: that there's some sort of environmental trigger. One I saw
23:07
Speaker 1: was like exposure to UV blight or something like that.
23:10
Speaker 1: But it's the same thing herpies as a virus like
23:14
Speaker 1: that it sleeps, which is why people who have like
23:18
Speaker 1: say herpie simplex don't always have um cold source. It'll
23:23
Speaker 1: just flare up, right, it will flare up. And they
23:25
Speaker 1: often say, like in times of stress or something like that, Well,
23:28
Speaker 1: the virus isn't like this person is stressed out, let's go.
23:32
Speaker 1: There's probably cortisol triggers the virus to start reproducing. But
23:37
Speaker 1: one of the one of the devious aspects of this
23:40
Speaker 1: is when that when that virus sneaks in and inserts
23:45
Speaker 1: it's d n A or RNA into the DNA of
23:48
Speaker 1: the cell and just hang back and wait. Well, that
23:52
Speaker 1: cell is dividing as like normal again the virus unwittingly
23:57
Speaker 1: right without the virus even being reproduced, and now set
24:00
Speaker 1: up to be reproduced rather than in just one cell,
24:04
Speaker 1: now four or eight or sixteen or thirty two. And
24:07
Speaker 1: then all hell breaks loose when all of them start
24:10
Speaker 1: going at the same time because they were all exposed
24:12
Speaker 1: to cortisol. That's what I'm saying. Yeah, viruses are amazingly
24:17
Speaker 1: interesting and wicked, wicked, wicked things. Um So here are
24:23
Speaker 1: some tips the way on. You know, if your office
24:27
Speaker 1: is sick or you're around your four year old niece. Uh,
24:31
Speaker 1: here's some tips from your buddies here to keep you
24:34
Speaker 1: from getting sick. You know that there are carrier organisms
24:37
Speaker 1: like mosquitoes and fleas. They can spread viruses. We know
24:40
Speaker 1: it can be airborne. We already talked about bodily fluids,
24:43
Speaker 1: whether that's nose juice or saliva or blood or semen
24:47
Speaker 1: or vaginal secretions as one way you can get a
24:50
Speaker 1: direct transfer. Uh. Surfaces on which bodily fluids have dried,
24:56
Speaker 1: which is kind of scary to think about. Yeah, you know,
25:00
Speaker 1: you want to keep all those secretions like off of
25:04
Speaker 1: the surfaces because the virus can live outside of the
25:06
Speaker 1: body for a while. Apparently flu virus can live for
25:09
Speaker 1: seven days just on the surface. Yeah, that's why I like,
25:13
Speaker 1: you sneeze in your hand and you open the door
25:15
Speaker 1: to your office, then there's there could be a little
25:18
Speaker 1: virus on that door knob and um, that's why they
25:22
Speaker 1: super advise. And one of the things that we're advising
25:25
Speaker 1: now is to wash your hands a lot if you're
25:27
Speaker 1: sick or if you know that there are sickness around you.
25:31
Speaker 1: Like I wouldn't be Howard Hughes about it, but I
25:35
Speaker 1: wash my hands a lot when I know that there's
25:37
Speaker 1: viruses going around. I started washing my hands a lot
25:40
Speaker 1: more once I've found out or was told what you're
25:43
Speaker 1: actually doing when you're washing your hand, Um, you're not
25:46
Speaker 1: actually killing anything on your hands, any germs. What you're
25:50
Speaker 1: doing by introducing soap is you're creating something that will
25:54
Speaker 1: basically go and cling to germs on your hands, and
25:57
Speaker 1: then when you wash off the soap, you're washing the germs.
26:00
Speaker 1: So you're not like waging war or anything like that.
26:03
Speaker 1: You're basically just rinsing your hands clean. Literally. So once
26:07
Speaker 1: once I realized that, I was like, oh yeah, watching
26:09
Speaker 1: washing hands makes a lot of sense, because before that
26:12
Speaker 1: I was like, something doesn't do anything. Yeah, like and
26:16
Speaker 1: I don't even use antibacterial soap as a rule, but
26:19
Speaker 1: so I was like, it's definitely not doing anything. Now
26:22
Speaker 1: I'm like, it is doing something. So let's wash our
26:25
Speaker 1: hands as often as possible. That's a good idea, and
26:29
Speaker 1: a really long T shirt. If you are sick, you're
26:32
Speaker 1: going to want to cover your mouth when you sneeze
26:36
Speaker 1: and cough, because that's just common decency. UM. You want
26:41
Speaker 1: to avoid contact with anyone else's bodily fluids, whether you're
26:44
Speaker 1: sick or not, and whether they're sick or not. It's
26:48
Speaker 1: just you don't want to have anyone else's bodily fluids
26:51
Speaker 1: on your in you unless you know you're like married
26:54
Speaker 1: or something, right then unless you really love that person,
26:58
Speaker 1: then fluids are welcome. Uh. And antibiotics and this this
27:02
Speaker 1: thing's gotten blue a few times. It's a very sexy show. Yeah,
27:06
Speaker 1: sexy virus. Uh, antibiotics aren't gonna help with um A
27:10
Speaker 1: viral infection that is obviously for bacterial infections only. Yes,
27:14
Speaker 1: But it occurred to me, chuck that if you you
27:17
Speaker 1: could cure a viral infection, if in a bacteria with antibiotics,
27:24
Speaker 1: it would be kind of like euthanasia, but it would
27:27
Speaker 1: cure the viral infection. That's good point. Bacteria infective with
27:31
Speaker 1: the virus. That's how tough viruses are. And we have
27:35
Speaker 1: no idea how they originated or where they came from.
27:39
Speaker 1: We don't. We just know they're super old, and the
27:42
Speaker 1: ones that are the oldest are the ones that kill
27:46
Speaker 1: the least. Yeah, if you think about it, a virus
27:50
Speaker 1: would just by right of natural selection evolved to be
27:55
Speaker 1: able to reproduce without killing the host, because if the
27:59
Speaker 1: hosts serve wives, then that just increases the chances of
28:02
Speaker 1: the virus to be spread from most most Right, So
28:05
Speaker 1: a really deadly virus is probably newer as far as
28:09
Speaker 1: humanity is concerned. And a virus that can infect more organism,
28:14
Speaker 1: more types of organisms, like one that could make grass
28:18
Speaker 1: sick but also make a human sick, that's probably a
28:22
Speaker 1: pretty old virus. Old virus just sounds intimidating. Well, we
28:27
Speaker 1: have like basically what amounts to fossilized viruses in our
28:31
Speaker 1: DNA from all those viruses, those retroviruses that came in
28:34
Speaker 1: inserted as genetic material, and our body learned to mount
28:38
Speaker 1: a defense against them. But that that stuff is still
28:41
Speaker 1: in the human genome. Viruses they're there are also immunizations,
28:46
Speaker 1: of course, and you know how they work. They pre
28:50
Speaker 1: infect your body so it knows you know how to
28:52
Speaker 1: mount the the fight against it, to make sure it
28:56
Speaker 1: has all the right equipment. It's like putting up wanted
28:58
Speaker 1: posters in your body. Yeah, but those virus has changed slightly,
29:02
Speaker 1: ever so slightly enough to where you have to keep
29:05
Speaker 1: updating these vaccines so you know it keeps working well, yeah,
29:09
Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, they evolve fairly quickly. Um. Lastly, check,
29:13
Speaker 1: I want to address something. There is a I guess
29:16
Speaker 1: a misconception or urban legend or whatever that you can
29:19
Speaker 1: tell where there you have a viral infection or a
29:21
Speaker 1: bacterial infection um or what kind of virus you have
29:26
Speaker 1: based on the color of your mucus. We talked about
29:29
Speaker 1: fluorescent or something like that. They they don't in and
29:33
Speaker 1: of themselves relate to a specific type of virus or
29:37
Speaker 1: bacterial or viral infection or anything like that. It's not true.
29:42
Speaker 1: So that's viruses. Yeah, I got nothing else. It is
29:44
Speaker 1: good to know how this stuff works out because, um,
29:47
Speaker 1: you know, when you get sick, you understand a little better.
29:50
Speaker 1: Maybe you can mentally fight the stuff more effectively. I'm
29:53
Speaker 1: doing it right now. You see how I'm bleeding from
29:56
Speaker 1: my scalp. Oh my god, I'm using a lot of
29:57
Speaker 1: mental power. It's amazing. If you want to know more
30:00
Speaker 1: about viruses, you can start by typing that word into
30:03
Speaker 1: the search bar at how stuff works dot com and
30:06
Speaker 1: it will bring up this cool article. And I said
30:09
Speaker 1: how stuff works. So it's time for listener meal. I'm
30:14
Speaker 1: gonna call this Headstones. My name is George Gilbert. I'm
30:18
Speaker 1: a new but enthusiastic fan from the University of Washington,
30:22
Speaker 1: Go Huskies. I was listening to your Tombstones podcast, and
30:25
Speaker 1: I want to say that the move to churchyard burials
30:28
Speaker 1: is a bit more complicated than you implied. Uh. If
30:31
Speaker 1: I remember correctly, burials and churchyards began mostly as a
30:34
Speaker 1: common practice because of the plague. Churches would sell spots
30:38
Speaker 1: for burial within the church itself, in the walls and
30:40
Speaker 1: the floors et cetera. Because there was a common belief
30:44
Speaker 1: during the Middle Ages that being buried in the church
30:46
Speaker 1: was being very closer to God. And if you're very
30:48
Speaker 1: closer to God, the better off you're going to be
30:50
Speaker 1: in the afterlife, the reasoning goes, many people would actually
30:54
Speaker 1: get spots within their local church to be buried, or
30:57
Speaker 1: at least very close to the walls outside. During the
30:59
Speaker 1: plague gears sow Over, the amount of bodies accumulated to
31:02
Speaker 1: be buried became too much, and they began to bury
31:03
Speaker 1: people further outside the church, even if they had paid
31:07
Speaker 1: for a spot inside. I read a great book on
31:10
Speaker 1: death in London through the Ages that talked about it
31:13
Speaker 1: that was called Necropolis. Highly recommend it. So thanks for
31:17
Speaker 1: teaching me such awesome stuff, guys, I can now ask
31:19
Speaker 1: my mother in law intelligent questions about growing up in
31:23
Speaker 1: Germany during the Cold War thanks to your Berlin Wall program.
31:27
Speaker 1: Nice And that is from Georgia. That was fascinating. The plague,
31:31
Speaker 1: by the way, it was bacterial, not viral. In case
31:34
Speaker 1: anybody was wondering like me, Yeah, we did one of
31:37
Speaker 1: the plague, right, we did? Ye black death or black plague. Yeah, anyway,
31:41
Speaker 1: who is that again, Georgia. Thanks a lot, Georgia. We
31:44
Speaker 1: appreciate that that was a great email. Uh. If you
31:47
Speaker 1: have a great email, you can try to tweet it
31:50
Speaker 1: to us if it's short at s Y s K podcast.
31:53
Speaker 1: You can post it on Facebook if you like, at
31:55
Speaker 1: Facebook dot com, slash stuff you Should Know, or you
31:58
Speaker 1: can send us an email like a normal person, to
32:01
Speaker 1: stuff podcast at how stuff works dot com, and as always,
32:05
Speaker 1: in the meantime, hang out with us at our hold
32:07
Speaker 1: on the web, Stuff you Should Know dot com. For
32:14
Speaker 1: more on this and thousands of other topics, is it
32:16
Speaker 1: how stuff Works dot com.