TEDTalk Tuesday: Making Diseases Less Deadly

[Occulus]

In this week's TEDTALKTUESDAY, we hear from an an evolutionary biologist specializing in the evolution of infectious disease who shows us how diseases can evolve to become less deadly, or even nonlethal. Thinking from what he calls a "germ's-eye view", today's speaker challenges the concept of strict genetic susceptibility to disease while considering what makes them harmful in the first place.

Enjoy!

PAULEWALD

Talk Title: Can We Domesticate Germs? (video runtime: 17:52)

You can also download this talk for free in high resolution format.



Paul Ewald

Wiki bio

About this talk

Evolutionary biologist Paul Ewald drags us into the sewer to discuss germs. Why are some more harmful than others? How could we make the harmful ones benign? Searching for answers, he examines a disgusting, fascinating case: diarrhea.

[InvisibleTouch]

1. A new disease is usually virulent at first...

...because the new host population has no resistance. A really lethal disease that kills quickly, pretty much has to become less virulent with time, if it's going to survive - otherwise it kills its host too fast to spread to the next one. Most eventually mutate to something more chronic.