It was in 2007 that the term Lamprey disease became a common term when people received emails with disturbing photographs of damaged fingers along with the detailed symptoms and causes of the Lamprey disease. The disease got its name from Lamprey, a jawless sea parasite, as it was depicted in the e-mails that the damaged human fingers could develop an opening akin to the mouth of a Lamprey.
Lamprey disease again went viral on Facebook and left the social media users aghast. However, the truth behind the disease has always been questionable. Find out below your answer to the question ‘what is lamprey disease’ and how the term became a popular concern.
(Image Courtesy: Autodo)
It came in as a major eye opener when Urban Legends Reference Pages or the Snopes declared the Lamprey disease to be just another hoax and internet rumor. It was, in fact, nothing but grafting of a Lamprey's mouth over a human finger using photo editing tools.
Well, the disease was apparently told to be resulting from prolonged mouse and keyboard use. Well, unlike the informative snacking for good health emails, the internet hoax only ended up making the internet users uncomfortable and gave people a reason to be paranoid about computer usage.
(Image Courtesy: Noetioc Science)
We would love to hear from you. Do you still believe in the Lamprey disease? Kindly use the comment box to share your thoughts and opinions with us.
(Featured Image Courtesy: alaska)
Share
Snopes reports that the photographs are actually pictures of human body parts with photos of the mouths of lampreys edited into the picture, producing a disturbing appearance. The use of the lamprey's mouth in this fashion led to the name "lamprey disease."
Lampreys are a species of jawless fish, reports Animal Planet. They look a lot like eels, appearing long and snake-like with few evident fins. They grow from 12 to 20 inches in length. They have no jaws and instead have a round sucker-like mouth equipped with numerous teeth. They are parasites and live by clamping onto the sides of fish and chewing a hole into the side of the fish. They consume blood and body fluids from the fish, and may remain clamped onto the side of the fish for a few hours or weeks at a time. Smaller fish often die from infection and trauma after a lamprey attack, but larger fish may survive.
Researchers at the US Marine Biological Laboratory have made some surprising discoveries after decoding the genome of the sea lamprey, a primitive fish, reporting their work in the journal Nature Genetics. Although they're very different from us, the sea lamprey's genome contains genes linked to human neurological conditions including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's diseases, as well as spinal cord injuries.