• Question: I know animals can spread awful diseases, but can we spread diseases to animals?

    Asked by glacierbunnys to David, Rebecca, Simon, Verity, Wei on 15 Jun 2011.
    • Photo: Rebecca Handley

      Rebecca Handley answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Great question! I know a really good story about this one. Humans can get stomach ulcers, in old times they used to be serious and kill people, but now we can treat them with antibiotics. They are caused by a bacteria that lives in your stomach (Helicobacter pylori – if you want to google it). Recently they found that lions had been suffering from stomach ulcers too. Scientists have proved that the infection probably spread to lions in ancient times, when people used to be fed to lions as a form of punishment! So definitely, yes!

    • Photo: Wei Xun

      Wei Xun answered on 14 Jun 2011:

      Apparently this also happened with chickens: http://tree.bio.ed.ac.uk/publications/401/

    • Photo: Verity Nye

      Verity Nye answered on 15 Jun 2011:

      I think that Rebecca and Wei have already answered this one nicely.

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