Re: H1N5 (and Bakker's virus extinction hypothesis) now H5N1

[frank bliss <frank@blissnet.com>]

Yeah, but the major transmission path way for a host of viral  
pathogens is onto the skin, a cut in the mouth, into eyes, mouth,  
nasal or any other mucus membrane.  Things like E. coli, Salmonella  
and Campylobacter jejuni that pass around through the digestive  
system certainly don't bother vultures and hyena's.  Most scavengers  
were/are probably immune systemically from such common things but a  
novel new bug might just give even the nastiest scavenger a problem.  
No sports drinks around to help them rehydrate, they die and the bug  
turns into the gift that keeps on giving. Death by dino diarrhea!   
Something novel like H5N1 is going to slice through the species  
barrier selectively.  A well designed pathogen will not kill all of  
it's hosts because it would then die off.  Therefore, moderate  
mortality is naturally selected for along with a slow incubation  
period allowing spread of the pathogen prior to killing the host.   
Viral infections hang out in carrion for days after the host dies  
leaving any scavenger that eats it open to infection.

Re: population densities.  The diversity of the dinos appear to have  
been in serious decline around the end of the Cretaceous before any  
extra-terrestrial impactor may/or may not have had an influence.   
Climate change from what ever cause, disease, etc all were certainly  
causative effects of the general decline and eventual demise of the  
dino rubric.   Every death was additive to the overall effect and  
IMHO, no single event sealed the lid of the coffin except (perhaps) a  
big ET impactor burning anything that wasn't underwater or in a cave.

Frank (Rooster) Bliss
MS Biostratigraphy
Weston, Wyoming
 www.cattleranch.org


On May 13, 2006, at 8:13 AM, David Marjanovic wrote:

> > Pandemic might have done pretty well because of the bad habit
> > predators have of not properly cooking their food.
>
> They tend to have accordingly strong stomach juices, however.
>
> > I suspect that disease was just one of the nails
> > in the coffin of non-avian dinos. Especially when the cold nuclear
> > night set in and immune systems were lowered around the globe.
>
> By then, however, population densities were probably too low to  
> enable diseases to spread across continents.