Mar 20, 2021 03:19 AM
Next pandemic: Scientists fear another coronavirus could jump from animals to humans
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsod...als-to-hum
EXCERPTS: When the pandemic began last year, scientists went looking for the origins of the coronavirus. Right away, they made a huge discovery. It looked like the virus jumped from a bat into humans.
Now, scientists are worried that another coronavirus will strike again, from either a bat or some other animal. So they've gone hunting for potential sources — and the news is a bit concerning. [...] depending on how you define a virus species, Holmes says, there are likely thousands of different coronaviruses all around the world. "We're only just starting to scratch the surface," he says. "The virusphere of coronaviruses is just immense."
And these pathogens aren't just hanging out in bats. Many types of animals carry these viruses, including dogs, cats, birds, chickens, pigs and rodents. Now the two big questions are: How often do these viruses jump from animals into people and how often do they make people sick?
[...] new coronaviruses are constantly jumping from bats and other animals into people — a process scientists call "spillover." The vast majority of these spillover events do very little, he says. But each one gives the virus the opportunity to adapt and spread more easily from person to person.
Every once in a while, a contagious virus infects a person who finds their way to a dense city, such as Wuhan. ... The next coronavirus outbreak could be right around the corner. (MORE - details)
Whales are descendants of 'tiny deer' that walked on land 50 MILLION years ago
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/...s-ago.html
INTRO: The largest animal on Earth swims through the depths of the oceans, but 50 million years ago whales walked the land on four legs. A professor at Northeast Ohio Medical University reveals the massive creatures are descendants of an ancient 'little deer,' known as Indohyus.
Through the research of cetaceans evolution, which includes hippopotamus to whales, Hans Thewissen discovered a 47-million-year-old fossil in Pakistan that featured a stocky, fox-sized animal with an elongated body and tail. The bones stuck in a layer of mud mirrors characteristics of modern-day whales - a bone over the middle-ear space and skull structure.
Thewissen and his team also determined Indohyus waded in the water like a hippopotamus in search of food and as a means to avoid predators, which eventually led them to shift from land to a fully aquatic lifestyle. Since Darwin, scientists have known whales descend from mammals that once walked on land, but which one had remained a mystery... (MORE - details)
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Some disagreement about whether the Pudú of South America or the animals below are currently the smallest deer species in the world.
https://www.youtube-nocookie.com/embed/R7WhSE3Zyy8
https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsod...als-to-hum
EXCERPTS: When the pandemic began last year, scientists went looking for the origins of the coronavirus. Right away, they made a huge discovery. It looked like the virus jumped from a bat into humans.
Now, scientists are worried that another coronavirus will strike again, from either a bat or some other animal. So they've gone hunting for potential sources — and the news is a bit concerning. [...] depending on how you define a virus species, Holmes says, there are likely thousands of different coronaviruses all around the world. "We're only just starting to scratch the surface," he says. "The virusphere of coronaviruses is just immense."
And these pathogens aren't just hanging out in bats. Many types of animals carry these viruses, including dogs, cats, birds, chickens, pigs and rodents. Now the two big questions are: How often do these viruses jump from animals into people and how often do they make people sick?
[...] new coronaviruses are constantly jumping from bats and other animals into people — a process scientists call "spillover." The vast majority of these spillover events do very little, he says. But each one gives the virus the opportunity to adapt and spread more easily from person to person.
Every once in a while, a contagious virus infects a person who finds their way to a dense city, such as Wuhan. ... The next coronavirus outbreak could be right around the corner. (MORE - details)
Whales are descendants of 'tiny deer' that walked on land 50 MILLION years ago
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/...s-ago.html
INTRO: The largest animal on Earth swims through the depths of the oceans, but 50 million years ago whales walked the land on four legs. A professor at Northeast Ohio Medical University reveals the massive creatures are descendants of an ancient 'little deer,' known as Indohyus.
Through the research of cetaceans evolution, which includes hippopotamus to whales, Hans Thewissen discovered a 47-million-year-old fossil in Pakistan that featured a stocky, fox-sized animal with an elongated body and tail. The bones stuck in a layer of mud mirrors characteristics of modern-day whales - a bone over the middle-ear space and skull structure.
Thewissen and his team also determined Indohyus waded in the water like a hippopotamus in search of food and as a means to avoid predators, which eventually led them to shift from land to a fully aquatic lifestyle. Since Darwin, scientists have known whales descend from mammals that once walked on land, but which one had remained a mystery... (MORE - details)
- - - - - -
Some disagreement about whether the Pudú of South America or the animals below are currently the smallest deer species in the world.