Your brain has a virus you don't even know about
Bonjour from the North — three cities, one corridor, and the stories that don't make it south of Barrie.
Okay, listen up, because I just read something that made me spill my coffee, and I swear to you, it felt like someone was messing with me. You know that feeling when you hear about some crazy disease, but you think, "Nah, that's for people in movies, not for us here in Sault Ste. Marie"? Well, turns out, we're all walking around with a brain-eating virus. No, no, I'm not making this up. The scientists, the ones with the big brains and the fancy labs, they're saying that a fatal brain infection, one we thought only happened if your immune system was totally shot, it’s actually way more common. Like, you're probably infected with it *right now*. Tabarnak!
### Your Brain is a Dinner Plate
So, the big reveal is about a virus that causes a fatal brain infection, and for years, the thinking was it only hit people with seriously compromised immune systems. Like, really, really bad. But new research is basically saying, "Nope, we were wrong." The scientific community is now realizing that this brain-eating virus, which I’m not even going to name because it sounds like something out of a horror film, is actually present in a lot of us. It's just hanging out, presumably waiting for its moment. They're still figuring out the *how* and *why* it decides to go from chill roommate to destructive squatter, but the idea that it's just *there* in most of us? Ça me fait peur, that does.
* The virus was previously thought to only affect those with profound immune suppression.
* New research suggests it's much more widespread in the general population.
* The mechanisms for activation are still being studied, but it's not just an immune system issue anymore.
Honestly, it makes you think, eh? We worry about the price of gas, whether the Greyhounds are going to make a playoff run, and if Algoma Steel is going to keep humming along, and all this time, there's a virus in our heads just chilling. It's like finding out the squirrels in Bellevue Park aren't just cute, they're actually secretly planning world domination. We're so focused on what's right in front of us, the big, obvious worries, that we don't even register the silent, invisible threats. In the Sault, we always say, "You gotta be tough to live up here." But how tough do you have to be to fight something already living in your own head? That's a different kind of Northern grit.
Marc-André Desjardins, Sault Ste. Marie, signing off.
The team on the morning show is probably having a field day with this one – you can catch them live at mornings.live.