2 HN users recommended this explainer2 months2021–2024score 2.5
Years with an HN recommendation, 2007–2026
HN users call it a mind-blowing and good explainer on how the immune system works, and cite it in vaccine and disease threads.
Kurzgesagt's animated explainer on the human immune system, describing the body as an ecosystem and how immune defenses cope with the variety of invaders. It promotes their book Immune.
“this Kurzgeasgt video blew my mind on this topic. Our immune system really is amazing.” (HN, 2022)
Vaccines are different from antibiotics in that they are designed to use your own immune system. Whereas an antibiotic targets a bacterial weakness which the bacteria can fix, the immune system watches for both specific invaders and possible variations of those invaders . Kurzgesagt made a good explainer video on this recently: [this video]
Explains how the immune system handles variations of invaders.
> Some fraction may not go through the normal cycle, but it can't be many. Maybe it is because I just saw an animated video on cancer (I’ll find the link when I get home) on YouTube but then so are we thinking of a bee hive as one individual? Like in the video, they talk about how cancer cells refuse to die when something bad happens like they are supposed to… So this is going to sound cheesy but now I have to wonder, could you zoom out on humans as well? On earth? Are what we call “living beings” what we would call “malignant cells” or at best mutations? Now that’s a scary thought. Edit: I think it is this one [this video]
Animated video on cancer cells that prompted the commenter's musings.
Does this relate to the shutdown of the thymus (the "murder university")? The thymus goes dormant at the age of 85,as I've read. The lymphoid strain can specialize into t-cells, which is the speciality of the thymus. [this video] The myeloid does provide macrophages, but they are of little value compared to an activated b-cell on a mission.
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