All you snake eaters and lovers, here is something I think you should know.

Scientists have found a surprising link between deadly Ebola virus and a disease that's been killing boa constrictors in zoos and aquariums.

A team at the University of California, San Francisco, has found evidence that a previously undiscovered virus is responsible for something called inclusion body disease in boas. And this virus, described in the journal mBio, appears to be related to both Ebola and another deadly class of viruses called arenaviruses.

The discovery should make it possible to contain outbreaks by testing snakes for inclusion body disease before putting them in a collection. It also may help researchers figure out how some dangerous viruses in animals end up infecting people.

"We know a lot about viruses in pigs and bats and mice," says Joseph DeRisi, a virologist at UCSF. "No one suspected snakes might be a repository of information about these hemorrhagic viruses."

DeRisi and his team might never have discovered the virus that's killing snakes without the efforts of a woman named Taryn Hook.

Hook, who lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, had become worried about her snake, a 7-foot-long boa constrictor named Larry.

http://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2012/08/14/158501873/how-a-virus-in-snakes-could-offer-clues-to-ebola-in-humans

http://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-19261506

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Bad news for snake eaters

may God help us

greatwhite:
Bad news for snake eaters

u dis boy, u always like to find trouble! And u even always laff when u start trouble!! Why is yur mouth doing as if u want to mention lala in dis mata?!!!

nairalife2013:
u dis boy, u always like to find trouble! And u even always laff when u start trouble!! Why is yur mouth doing as if u want to mention lala in dis mata?!!!

Is lala into snake cuisine? Who is lala? I am new around here. Really don't know the snake eaters.