The Insanity Virus | DiscoverMagazine.com...has it shaped more than a few stories?
This article is incredibly exciting in so many ways. I will not begin to attempt to deconstruct and explain all the ramifications of retroviruses, diseases like MS, schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, a virus that may have been attached to our DNA for sixty million years, and something like influenza triggering a cascade in an infant body, manifesting in a ghastly disease decades later.
I leave those aspects to you, reading the article. I want to address this:
Even more puzzling is the so-called birth-month effect: People born in winter or early spring are more likely than others to become schizophrenic later in life. It is a small increase, just 5 to 8 percent, but it is remarkably consistent, showing up in 250 studies. That same pattern is seen in people with bipolar disorder or multiple sclerosis.
“The birth-month effect is one of the most clearly established facts about schizophrenia,” says Fuller Torrey, director of the Stanley Medical Research Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
{snip!}
The first, pivotal infection by toxoplasmosis or influenza (and subsequent flaring up of HERV-W) might happen shortly before or after birth. That would explain the birth-month effect: Flu infections happen more often in winter. The initial infection could then set off a lifelong pattern in which later infections reawaken HERV-W, causing more inflammation and eventually symptoms.
The Insanity Virus | DiscoverMagazine.com
Weddings in so many cultures take place at the end of spring, into the hot months. This is a time people can get together to celebrate families joining together. It is a time between planting and harvest. It is a time where if a couple is lucky, they catch their first offspring and carry it to a healthy birth in the spring or early summer. I've heard that babies born in summer are smarter--it's a small percentage higher, but measurable.
Could part of this be an unvoiced understanding that healthier babies are born in spring, summer and autumn--not winter? Not just that a winter baby might catch a cold that develops into bronchitis or pneumonia...but that sometimes people born in winter didn't thrive? And that a small percentage of them have troubles later? With high infant mortality, I don't know that they had time or strength to think about such things. But I wonder.
I wonder if many changelings were children who did not thrive because they were already ill.
We sometimes forget that our ancestors often--usually--had reasons for what they did. Their margins were so tight, they couldn't waste time doing things they thought had no value. We often toss out their observations as superstition, forgetting that while their conclusions may have been erroneous, their observations were often dead on. Many times they saw with a clear eye--they just didn't know what they were seeing.
The longer I live, the more I realize that we often don't know what we are seeing, either. Medical genius is born in "That's odd...."
And this is why, despite my fascination with science of all kinds, I am a storyteller.
I leave those aspects to you, reading the article. I want to address this:
Even more puzzling is the so-called birth-month effect: People born in winter or early spring are more likely than others to become schizophrenic later in life. It is a small increase, just 5 to 8 percent, but it is remarkably consistent, showing up in 250 studies. That same pattern is seen in people with bipolar disorder or multiple sclerosis.
“The birth-month effect is one of the most clearly established facts about schizophrenia,” says Fuller Torrey, director of the Stanley Medical Research Institute in Chevy Chase, Maryland.
{snip!}
The first, pivotal infection by toxoplasmosis or influenza (and subsequent flaring up of HERV-W) might happen shortly before or after birth. That would explain the birth-month effect: Flu infections happen more often in winter. The initial infection could then set off a lifelong pattern in which later infections reawaken HERV-W, causing more inflammation and eventually symptoms.
The Insanity Virus | DiscoverMagazine.com
Weddings in so many cultures take place at the end of spring, into the hot months. This is a time people can get together to celebrate families joining together. It is a time between planting and harvest. It is a time where if a couple is lucky, they catch their first offspring and carry it to a healthy birth in the spring or early summer. I've heard that babies born in summer are smarter--it's a small percentage higher, but measurable.
Could part of this be an unvoiced understanding that healthier babies are born in spring, summer and autumn--not winter? Not just that a winter baby might catch a cold that develops into bronchitis or pneumonia...but that sometimes people born in winter didn't thrive? And that a small percentage of them have troubles later? With high infant mortality, I don't know that they had time or strength to think about such things. But I wonder.
I wonder if many changelings were children who did not thrive because they were already ill.
We sometimes forget that our ancestors often--usually--had reasons for what they did. Their margins were so tight, they couldn't waste time doing things they thought had no value. We often toss out their observations as superstition, forgetting that while their conclusions may have been erroneous, their observations were often dead on. Many times they saw with a clear eye--they just didn't know what they were seeing.
The longer I live, the more I realize that we often don't know what we are seeing, either. Medical genius is born in "That's odd...."
And this is why, despite my fascination with science of all kinds, I am a storyteller.