NIBBLING at the soil is their thing, but unfortunately for sheep, deer and elk that very habit could be spreading diseases that lay waste to their brains. The finding could explain why so many ruminants catch illnesses similar to mad cow disease and why fields appear to remain infectious many years after they are grazed.
A team led by Judd Aiken of the University of Wisconsin, Madison, has discovered that prions – the rogue proteins that cause BSE-like diseases – become 700 times more infectious when bound to the common soil mineral montmorillonite. The proof came from experiments in which…
