i didn’t know that!

When I was a kid one of my favourite books was Old Yellow. Great adventure story – but ends (spoiler alert) with the dog getting shot because it developed rabies. I was so pleased to find out that we didn’t have rabies in NZ! Anyway, rabies is caused by a virus, & there’s a vaccine for it; you can be given this after  being bitten by a rabid animal because it takes a relatively long time for the virus to make its way to your brain (after which, you can forget all about the vaccine, it’s too late). But I just found out today that a) the virus gets to your brain via the nervous system; & b) that this was shown by introducing the virus into rats, via a wound in a hind foot, & then (between a day or so & up to 3 weeks later) cutting the sciatic nerve in the affected leg! Now that’s an example of scientific creativity in action – how on earth did the researchers (back in 1887) come up with that one? Anyway, go to ERV’s place & read the whole story 🙂