What’s more frightening than a deadly flesh-eating virus from the heart of Africa? A deadly flesh-eating virus from the heart of Africa than can mutate.
A new strain of the brutal Ebola ZEBOV strain has been discovered, leading French researchers to the complacency-hemorrhaging conclusion that the virus is capable of - nay, eager for - swapping genetic material so it can fuck up humanity in creative new ways.
Ebola’s mutation is especially noteworthy because Filoviridiae viruses (to which Ebola is a proud member) is rarely recombinant, unlike the frustratingly adaptive HIV/AIDS.
Why does Africa get to be the origin point of all the modern spine-tingling, devastating viruses? It’s time for other continents to step up and produce some really gruesome pandemics. The only other continent that even comes close is Asia, who gave the world the gifts of the bubonic plague and the bird flu.
Create an unstoppable brain-melting virus in a lab, North America! Contribute a strain of something that simulates period cramps in men, South America! If you could pony up a viral infection that turns the human body to stone, it would really improve your standing in the virus community, Europe! Koalas are just waiting to spread something to humans, Australia! And you, Antarctica: You should at least give it the college try, even if you’re just killing polar bears.
