Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Diseases

Today I got up early and with my friend Ron went to Appleton for an RC Airplane swap meet. It was fun to see all the stuff people have to get rid of. I bought some servo screws and Ron sold his glider.

It is still bitter cold outside and the outdoor wood stove is working overtime. Next week I’ll be talking to an alternative energy guy to see what I can do to supplement the wood heat.

Did you know that 95 percent of the people on earth have immunity to leprosy? Did you know that armadillos are carriers of leprosy? Did you know it’s spread by air born droplets, like a respiratory disease? Anyway it occurred to me while reading about cholera, that I didn’t know very much about leprosy, except that in ancient times it was about the worst thing a person could catch. Then there was bubonic plague. I believe that was transmitted by fleas carried on rats. Several others include Malaria carried by mosquitos, Typhoid Fever and Tuberculosis. We are extremely fortunate in this day and age to have antibiotics and immunizations that spare us much of the suffering these diseases have historically visited upon humanity.

If you’re ever bored, Google search these diseases. They are worth learning more about.

This brings me back to the Neanderthals. Did you know it is believed that Type 2 diabetes and Crones disease are tied to the Neanderthal genome, which was passed on to modern man. The good news is that our hair and skin are largely attributed to the genes passed down by the Neanderthals that helped us cope with the cold weather, they were accustomed to.