I learned a new word today: aeroplankton. Though the concept is not completely new. Most of us are familiar with tiny itty bitty organic particles floating in the air all the time, pollen is one for example. Think some more and maybe you will come up with fungal spores, airborne virus particles (like flu), or even some minuscule spiders. NPR did a cute video of the extraordinary bug-filled world above our heads a few years ago:
Did you watch it? Isn't that great? If I were just listening to this story on the radio I would still be duly impressed. But...that cartoon image of all those little bugs flying above the neighborhood - that was a real wow moment that hit it home for me. Anyways, I digress.
The fact that living things are present high in the atmosphere totally changes the way you comprehend natural connectivity. You realize that for a good number of creatures the world is not that big when you can take to the skies!
And of course I thought about the connection of this to disease!
I was researching a strange disease last year called Kawasaki disease (do not Google image that disease). As far as I know no one knows how the children get it. And it is mostly children that get it, very young children, like under 5 years of age. It is very deadly but so far doesn't appear to be contagious. It sprung up in Japan in the 1960's and now there have been cases in Hawaii and the western US. What is interesting is that the cases appear to be linked with strong winds coming from central Asia blowing towards the Pacific Ocean. When the winds go on to drift over Hawaii and the US there was also a rise in those cases. Eerie huh? Keep in mind it is a very thin chain we are using to link wind currents and Kawasaki disease, this is correlation NOT causation.
But it is an intriguing starting point for a very mysterious illness. What is it? A virus? A bacteria? Lots of different types of viruses and fungal/bacterial spores can survive in relatively severe physical conditions; it wouldn't be too far-fetched or surprising at all...but it is nonetheless impressive, no?
