{"id":3436,"date":"2023-05-02T09:21:31","date_gmt":"2023-05-02T14:21:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/?p=3436"},"modified":"2023-05-02T09:21:34","modified_gmt":"2023-05-02T14:21:34","slug":"diseases-didnt-just-shape-history-they-control-the-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/2023\/05\/02\/diseases-didnt-just-shape-history-they-control-the-future\/","title":{"rendered":"Diseases Didn\u2019t Just Shape History, They Control the Future"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"panel body-content\"><div class=\"panel__container\">\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/germs-viruses-pathogens-diseases-shaping-history\/\">Wired<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Even within your own body, your 30 trillion human cells can\u2019t compete with the 40 trillion or so bacteria that live rent-free in your gut, on your skin, under your toenails.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Your very DNA owes a significant chunk\u2014about 8 percent\u2014of its content to retroviruses, which, when they infect a sperm or egg cell, can rewrite short sections of our genetic code in a way that\u2019s passed down to the next generation. It\u2019s thought that these snippets gave our distant ancestors the ability to form memories and carry their young in a womb instead of laying eggs\u2014without them, humans could look very different.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>And it doesn\u2019t stop there. Even today, those bacteria living in your gut\u2014your microbiome\u2014may be influencing your behavior in ways that you can\u2019t sense and that&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.businessinsider.com\/parasite-cat-feces-wolves-entrepreneur-silicon-valley-startup-company-2022-12\">scientists don\u2019t understand<\/a>, releasing neurotransmitters to make you more sociable and more likely to spread bacteria, playing your brain like an instrument to serve their own ends.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It took the Covid-19 pandemic to really expose the power that germs have over our lives. But bacteria and viruses have been shaping our world in invisible ways for millennia, influencing not only our individual bodies but also the shape of the world we live in: history, politics, religion. That\u2019s the argument made by public health researcher and sociologist Jonathan Kennedy in his compelling new book,\u00a0<a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/www.penguin.co.uk\/books\/445043\/pathogenesis-by-kennedy-jonathan\/9781911709053\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Pathogenesis: How Germs Made History<\/em><\/a>. \u201cIn the spring of 2020 loads of people were saying, \u2018This is extraordinary, this is unprecedented,\u2019\u201d he says. \u201cI had a pretty good idea that it wasn\u2019t.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/germs-viruses-pathogens-diseases-shaping-history\/\">Continue reading<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wired Even within your own body, your 30 trillion human cells can\u2019t compete with the 40 trillion or so bacteria that live rent-free in your gut, on your skin, under your toenails.&nbsp; Your very DNA owes a significant chunk\u2014about 8 percent\u2014of its content to retroviruses, which, when they infect a sperm or egg cell, can [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11,"featured_media":3437,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":false,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3436","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-featured"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Screenshot-2023-05-02-at-10.20.55.png","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3436","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3436"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3436\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3438,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3436\/revisions\/3438"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3437"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3436"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3436"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.unmc.edu\/healthsecurity\/transmission\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3436"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}