Potatoes and Bubonic Plague

Potatoes and Bubonic Plague
Andre Willers
21 Feb 2012

Synopsis :
Potato eyes contain chaperone molecules that lock the human CCR5 receptor site .
Bubonic plague pandemics accordingly decreased with potato usage .

Discussion:
Note that Bubonic Plague was the one single pestilence that did not hit the Native American populations post-Columbus .

How does it work ?
High-altitude plants are subject to significantly higher mutation rates due to higher radiation .
They counter by putting sensitive stem cells under ground (shielding) , and surrounding them with chaperones (DNA editors and portal blockers)

CCR5 is one of the major entry-ports into the cell , and has been hijacked by numerous diseases .
It still persists because it plays a major role in fertility (ie allowing entry to strange genetic material during fertilization) . We thus have an intriguing combination of factors: the actual fertilization rate in humans drop as potato consumption increases , but the number of surviving children increases due to better health and food . A population spurt , followed by a decline . The pattern observed everywhere after the potato was introduced on a large scale .

Mongolia :
Bubonic plague central .
Potatoes are now the second staple foodstuff . Their birthrate is very sustainable .
The old high death rate due to plague has been offset by fertility control by the potato.

China :
China is now the largest potato producer in the world (by a factor of 4) .
Note the single-child policy . This is mostly a result of the introduction of potatoes .

But what is in it for the plant?
Remember , humans and potatoes co-evolved during this process of domestication . The arable areas were small mountain valleys . Over-production of either humans or potatoes were not desired . Variety was and disease resistance was .

And your burger fries ?
Sigh .
Nary an eye in sight . I doubt if the chaperones would survive frying .
But they have been engineered to survive boiling , especially at lower altitudes (ie 90C)

Spanish Flu in 1918
To increase efficiency , varieties of potato were bred without eyes . These were fed to the troops and populace . Rendering them extremely vulnerable to an opportunistic CCR5 predator.
We still have them today Correlate the incidences of things like bird-flu , H1N1 , etc with eye-potato intake .

Optimizing :
How to lock your CCR5 receptors .
1.Take a potato with eyes that has not begun to germinate . Make sure it is not green .
Dig out the eyes (3-5 eyes) . Pour a bit of 90C water over them .
(Boil the water and wait a bit)
2.Squeeze a garlic clove over it and drink immediately .
The allicin in garlic decreases opportunistic bacteria trying to achieve a quorum to hijack the CCR5 receptor site .

Why 90C water and not raw ?
Co-evolved plants can only recognize their partners by an action that is unique . Boiling water is unique to humans . It also tells the plant partner to switch off defensive systems . Note teas , etc .

Allergies
If you don't do that , the plant defensive systems trigger allergies , especially in subterranean seeds like peanuts . Note refined (ie heat-treated) peanut oil is not allergenic , even to sensitized individuals .

Coffee
The plants have evolved at high altitudes , where the boiling point is lower .This tells the enzymes involved to uncoil in a precise way . Note the Coffee effect , especially with high-altitude Arabica .(Optimal temperature is about 92-98 C depending on altitude .)

Mongolian Potatoes
Batu (circa 1279 AD) loved meat and potatoes in butter .
After translation , this is horse-milk butter and the potatoes were taro's . Taro was a tuber like a potato , but it only grew in hot , humid climates . Ideal for a potentate to show off a really expensive dish in the Arctic .

If China or the Mongols had potatoes in the 13th century , the whole history of the world would have been different . We would most probably be talking a pidgin of Mongolian-Chinese , instead of the present pidgin of French-German. (Your beloved English .)

It is interesting that sweet-potatoes made it from South-America to the East via the Pacific Islands long before potatoes colonized Asia .

Why did the potato originate in south-America ?
Because the Andes run North-South .
Similar evolutionary conditions prevailed in Tibet , but the mountain ranges run East-West .
See Jared Diamond's arguments about climate effects of latitude-longtitude .

But , we should be able to find interesting tubers in the Rockies , Altai , Urals , Alleghenies.
High diversity biologicals more valuable than that of a rather uniform Amazon .
The Alleghenies should be particularly valuable . Biological pockets older than most mountain ranges on Earth .

Look and you shall find .

Andre

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Appendix I
Some interesting Tibetan Biologicals
Major ones include tuber of elevated gastrodiae, safflower, bulb of fritillary, pseudo-ginseng, rhubarb, root of hairy asiabell, large-leaved gentian, root of red-rooted salvia, glossy ganoderma and reticulate millettia. These medicinal herbs are so high in production that, after satisfying the needs of the Tibetan-inhabited areas, there is still a surplus to be exported to other parts of China. Some are even sold overseas.
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Appendix II
The Champ
Later genetic testing of the wide variety of cultivars and wild species proved a single origin for potatoes in the area of present-day southern Peru (from a species in the Solanum brevicaule complex), where they were domesticated 7,000–10,000 years ago

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