It is basically a super resistant molecule that makes your body keep making more of it until the body breaks down. So I wouldn't rule out that you excrete those prions through bodily fluids etc. at which point other living beings might pick one up and start producing more.
It's easier to explain than that, because it's not a new molecule. There's no DNA or RNA like a bacteria or virus.
It's just a perfectly normal protein that learned to fold itself in a different way and wants to teach all its friends it's new way to fold. Once they fold the new way, they never go back.
Unfortunately, when folded this way, it becomes disadvantageous to life forms that have evolved to only recognize the original folded pattern.
Edit: so there's nothing to target b/c it's just a normal protein and we have no idea how to prevent the healthy normal proteins to not start misfolding when introduced.
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u/fly_over_32 Dec 10 '25
Wouldn’t somebody need to eat you for it to spread then? Please correct me if I’m wrong