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Originally Posted by ZenGum
And, agreed, do NOT eat undercooked hamburger. Burger = mince = bits = brains and spinal cord = abnormal prions = vCJD = your brain turning into a sponge over the next decade or two.
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Prions are relatively unaffected by heat. Therefore, cooking your burger to kingdom come will
not affect its ability to turn your brain to mush. (See also: network television)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion
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Originally Posted by wikipedia
Infectious particles possessing nucleic acid are dependent upon it to direct their continued replication. Prions however, are infectious by their effect on normal versions of the protein. Therefore, sterilizing prions involves the denaturation of the protein to a state where the molecule is no longer able to induce the abnormal folding of normal proteins. However, prions are generally quite resistant to proteases, heat, radiation, and formalin treatments, [37] although their infectivity can be reduced by such treatments. Effective prion decontamination relies upon protein hydrolysis or reduction and/or destruction of protein tertiary structure. Examples include bleach, NaOH or strong acidic detergents such as LpH. |
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sterilization_(microbiology)
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Originally Posted by wikipedia
Using mice as test animals, one experiment showed that heating BSE positive brain tissue at 134-138 °C (273-280 °F) for 18 minutes resulted in only a 2.5 log decrease in prion infectivity. (The initial BSE concentration in the tissue was relatively low). For a significant margin of safety, cleaning should reduce infectivity by 4 logs, and the sterilization method should reduce it a further 5 logs. |
Nirvana, not to pick a fight, but what about "downer" cows in the US? I remember there was quite a fight about that a few years back.