1. Proteins are a chain sequence of amino acids, each link one of 20ish possibilities 2. These chains need to be folded in the right way for them to work properly 3. When they shape gets messed up, usually it just stops working (like when you fry an egg)
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Replying to @eigenrobot
4. Prions are a completely fucked up case of a protein being misfolded 5. Instead of simply breaking, it gains a new function 6. Specifically the new function is taking correctly-folded versions of itself and misfolding them into its own bad shape 7. chain reaction 8. gg
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Replying to @cherryboyron
I'm not sure about this; protein folding is deeply tricky shit that generally requires enormous amounts of compute to understand via simulation (cf folding@home) Have an idea tho sec But also yes: it's completely unlike viruses (which hijack normal cell function to reproduce),
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Replying to @eigenrobot
or bacterial or endoparasites (which are separate living things that got inside you and are running amok) But they are similar in that they're self-replicating Things that use humans as a host and can be communicated from one human to another (Compare: memes)
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Replying to @eigenrobot
Ok my idea didn't bear fruit, but one other interesting thing Your body is full of proteins called proteases, which just go around chopping up other proteins (this is normal and good) Prions might be controlled by protease degradation, except they also . . .
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turn into relatively tight balls when misfolded, which gives them an advantage against proteases
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