Ebola and Chocolate

Ebola and Chocolate
Andre Willers
30 May 2011

"The center cannot hold . Things fall apart. "

Synopsis :
Yet another round in the Plant-Herbivore Wars .The sudden intrusion of cacao plants into West Africa (Ivory Coast) enabled opportunistic filoviri to hijack some evolutionary old accommodations on cellular memory . These are rewound to nearly stem-cell stage , unstitching inter-cellular integrity . The cells forget their place .
Things fall apart and fluids leak all over the place .

Discussion :

Broad Argument :
Plants evolve poisons to prevent being eaten , but also to promote propagation .
Fertilizing animals are at first punished less , then rewarded as an accommodation is reached .
Herbivores develop metabolisms to neutralize , then utilize poisons , and utilize any plant propagation rewards .
The system must be seen as a whole , over a long period of time .

Split Strategic Objectives :
As is seen , the conflict between personal survival and successful propagation drives the process .

Plants could easily have inhibited multi-cellular animals , but mobile animals have propagation advantages . And , so , we are off to the races . In this case , literally .

The most successful racers are flyers . Especially insects .
For instance , humans and most mammals will not survive the total eradication of mosquitoes .

Hint : sideways benign bacterial transmission gene-material will vanish . Most benign plants have a vested interest in keeping the status-quo , but denying them the major vector of long-distance gene-transmission via birds-mosquitoes will allow only local malign influences to predominate . This follows from Complexity : There are many more ways of going Wrong than going Right . To increase the odds of going Right , the more the merrier . This means communication .QED .
Also known as The Small-World Network Model .

Binary Poisons :
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com "Garlic and the Plant-Herbivore Wars" Apr 2011
Really powerful chemicals are kept under control by keeping innocuous feeder stocks separate , and only combining them under controlled conditions .

This can be as simple as keeping them physically separate as in Garlic , or in complex chemical pathways mediated by enzymes as in cells . Actually , quite simple .

See the cell in energy terms . Not complex at all . Inevitable is the term

Just a Knossos of walls , with a Minotaur for variety .

End State :
A fairly constant end state is something like Chocolate . A synthesis of the thesis and antithesis . A powerful forgetty poison (theobromine) is combined with a positive-feedback neurotransmitter (phenethylamine) (ie memory),
but with moderating chaperones (phenols discovered , still to be described) .

This tension has played a major role in evolution , as it enables duplicates of genes to play an exaggerated role . While humans only have about 25 000 genes , they have many , many more in duplicates . And these get switched on or off , or more deliciously , only partially , to give a nearly smooth range of responses .

Caffeine
Even without dietary intake, theobromine may occur in the body as it is a product of the human metabolism of caffeine, which is metabolised in the liver into 10% theobromine, 4%theophylline, and 80% paraxanthine.
High blood concentrations of paraxanthine have been linked to spontaneous abortion in pregnant mothers.

Plants have been breeding humans .

Drinking coffee and tea means stimulated consciousness , but also lower fertility .

Remember , there is no consciousness involved . It is purely evolutionary .
Fewer humans means that more can afford luxuries like Starbucks .
The optimization calculations is left to the dear reader .

Plants seem to like mobile members of Gaia to be very active , with reproductive rates within strict boundaries . Figures .This optimum can be calculated .

Caffeine Breakdown genes :
See http://andreswhy.blogspot.com" Caffeine and Heart Attacks" Mar 2011
Humans with 1 out of 2 defective copies of the gene P450 A12 (CYP1A2) on chromosome 15 are at least 64 times more likely to have a heart attack . (It governs enzymes in the liver that breaks down caffeine)
It also means a continual high concentration of paraxanthine . This means severe anti-selection against individuals with this gene lack . His or her unborn babies will generally spontaneously abort .

The pulse effect
The normal time of caffeine breakdown is about 2 hours . A factor of 64 means that a person has to remain without coffee or tea for about 64/2 =32 hrs (1 and a third days) to have viable reproductive chances .

This basically means that the peasants breed like mad , but those that can afford coffee or tea have a lower reproduction rate . And so it goes .
See the Napoleon Effect : Not the warm baths , but the availability of coffee .

Integrins
(Remember the term –you will be seeing a lot of it )
The glue that keeps cells together . Basically a spin structure . Targeted by Cytokines with anti-spin architecture .

Andre
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Appendix A

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chocolate
"Cocoa solids contain alkaloids such as theobromine and phenethylamine, which have physiological effects on the body. It has been linked to serotonin levels in the brain. Some research found that chocolate, eaten in moderation, can lower blood pressure.[1] The presence of theobromine renders chocolate toxic to some animals,[2] especially dogs and cats.

The first signs of theobromine poisoning are nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, and increasedurination. These can progress to cardiac arrhythmias, epileptic seizures, internal bleeding,heart attacks, and eventually death."

Note the Internal Bleeding . This means failure of the epithelial linings of blood vessels . As happens in Haemorrhagic Fevers .

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ebola
"The presence of viral particles and cell damage resulting from budding causes the release of cytokines (specifically TNF-α, IL-6, IL-8, etc.), which are the signaling molecules for fever and inflammation. Thecytopathic effect, from infection in the endothelial cells, results in a loss of vascular integrity. This loss in vascular integrity is furthered with synthesis of GP, which reduces specific integrins responsible for cell adhesion to the inter-cellular structure, and damage to the liver, which leads to coagulopathy. Without vascular integrity and effective coagulation, blood quickly leaks through the blood vessel leading to hypovolemic shock."

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