KaKwok

Ain't got the brains to be a scientist but this sort of thing is an interest to me as a layman. It's a nice little distraction while I'm smoke testing something. I don't know whether a virus could inflict damage like this. Please do correct me but my understanding is that a virus is in some sense, a piece of code. Like all codes, there's a start, middle and an end to execution. Once the virus has gone through all three stages, the host get's over the symptoms and that's it. Which to me means that once the virus has run it's course, the infected individual should either die or go back to normal. That's what viruses do. I'm not aware of any viruses who's sow purpose is to keep you alive. A fungus or a bacterium or a parasite on the other hand would keep you alive, especially if it's survival depends on you being alive. So the question bugs is whether there is another organism out there that's: 1) Capable of triggering stimuli in a living host to perform certain tasks or behave in certain ways... anwser is YES. We actually use one of those things in herbal remedies. 2) Reproduce through spores or ingestion, this is important since it means that it will be more easily spread... yep, check 3) Opportunistic in such that it will exploit the situation when a potential host is severely weakened? I've got a cold now and I'm sure I'm going to be on antibiotics in a week (to treat the subsequent secondary infection) The scenario is that whatever the attacker is, it will rely on it's host as, shelter, food and reproduction, which means it needs to keep said host alive. The zombie mass thing? Well, we see that every time where there's a football final or a Black Friday sale. People don't need to be dead to be a raving, bunch of