Bats get a foul rap in all types of media — and it’s not totally unwarranted. At any time when they hit the information, it’s usually paired with some lethal illness that they’ve in some way unleashed on people: from Ebola to Hendra virus to Nipah virus to varied coronaviruses reminiscent of SARS, MERS, and even Covid-19. Bats are simply actually good at internet hosting lethal ailments, a lot in order that researchers from Brazil to Australia to China are looking out bat genomes for clues in regards to the subsequent potential outbreak.
However there’s one other angle to contemplate.
Bats aren’t simply excellent at internet hosting lethal ailments. They appear to tolerate them very effectively. In spite of everything, we’re not discovering caves stuffed with useless bats that have been struck down by Ebola or a coronavirus. Precisely how they do that has been a thriller, however researchers suppose it may be as a result of they developed with a novel capability: They’re the solely mammals that may fly.
Once we cease taking a look at bats as merely reservoirs of lethal illness and begin to have a look at them because the organic marvels they’re, new doorways open — ones that would doubtlessly unlock new approaches to how we deal with illness in people.
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