New Virus Jumps From Monkeys To Lab Workers 160
sciencehabit writes "It started with a single monkey coming down with pneumonia at the California National Primate Research Center in Davis. Within weeks, 19 monkeys were dead and three humans were sick. Now, a new report confirms that the Davis outbreak was the first known case of an adenovirus jumping from monkeys to humans. The upside: the virus may one day be harnessed as a tool for gene therapy."
Death may be here soon... (Score:1)
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Gene Therapy? (Score:3)
Unlikely. It will be weaponised for more desperate, enormous profits.
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Look to the history of the development of Agent Orange.
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hell yes, if we kill off the apes too then when our Columbia astronauts that actually traveled through a wormhole to the distant future arrive, they can rebuild human civilization not have to fight off apes.
Charles heston showed us the way.
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Somehow, I'm forced to suggest an alternative.
The fact that they're releasing Rise of The Planet of the Apes [imdb.com] in a couple of weeks seems apropos here. :-P
Re:Death may be here soon... (Score:4, Funny)
Somehow, I'm forced to suggest an alternative.
The fact that they're releasing Rise of The Planet of the Apes [imdb.com] in a couple of weeks seems apropos here. :-P
Planet of the Apes is already here, look at all the monkeys and baboons in Congress.
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free Planet of the Apes publicity (Score:1)
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Little known fact (Score:1, Funny)
I heard it was the Umbrella division at the CNPRC where this initially happened.
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The lab is too cheap to have a free condom vending machine in the washroom? Or was it removed because of budget cuts?
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Maybe it ran out.
Damn dirty apes! (Score:3)
You damned dirty apes!
Yay! (Score:1)
The upside: the virus may one day be harnessed as a tool for gene therapy.
Oh, I feel so much better now knowing there is an upside! And here I was worried that a virus totally new and thus unrecognized by the human immune system might wipe out the bulk of the human race. Silly me.
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RTFA - it was essentially harmless to us.
Re:Yay! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why would it "wipe out the bulk of the human race"? We encounter new viruses every year and our immune systems adapt. The workers in question didn't die either. How do you make the leap from a simple virus in an ape jumping to a few isolated humans to it wiping out the human race? Been watching too many movies? How would this be different than say, avian or swine flu? Somehow because it comes from an ape suddenly we're all doomed? Grow up.
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The "new" viruses you refer to are mutations of existing human viruses - they are more the same than they are different. When a virus jumps species the risk is that it is different enough to not be efficiently recognized by the immune system. Our immune systems are already "pre-primed" with antibodies to viruses we have already encountered, and that gives us a significant advantage in fighting off the "new" viruses you refer to, which are generally minor mutations.
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All viruses are mutations of past ones. It's called evolution. Whether it's from one species to another, they are all mutations of past virii. We call them new because they are new mutations, not because God suddenly said "Let there be Virii!" Even species jumping virii have to do battle with our "pre-primed" immune system because there is very little it hasn't seen before, in one form or another. You act as if our bodies have never come into contact with virii from other species before.
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Following your argument, humans can successfully mate with a tiger, since we at some point originated from the same primordial soup.
Also, the reason for the h1n1 scare, was we humans have tried that interspecies thing before, notably during ww1 where millions died of the Spanish flu.
Also, the h1n1, unlike most virii, did more damage to young people than normal, suspicion is our immune system had not seen this strain before, where as older people might have been primed in outbreaks before 1970.
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That doesn't follow my logic in any way shape or form. You should learn some of the basics of biology before attempting to make that analogy. Interaction with other species and contract germs/viruses is a far cry away from mating with them. But lets take your example anyway and then point out the Mule and the Liger. There are of course other examples.
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Following your argument, humans can successfully mate with a tiger, since we at some point originated from the same primordial soup
No, following his logic you could shoot a tiger with an elephant gun. Just the gun wouldn't work as well on a tiger as it works on an elephant.
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Your argument is flawed, and I'm not sure why you are bringing religion into this either. Since all viruses are mutations of past ones, then why are some so much more deadly than others? Apparently you believe that since our immune system can fend off a virus, it can fend off any virus, because they share some common ancestry. That is absurd. Whether they had a common ancestry or not is moot. The longer a virus has to mutate within a specific species, there more different it will be from the point at whi
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The book, The Hotzone (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hot_Zone), tells a story about a strain of Ebola that became known as Ebola Reston that was discovered in a research facility in Reston, VA in 1989.
It was an airborne strain that spread from monkey to monkey much like the Flu and was extremely fatal to the monkeys. But while it could (and DID) infect a human, it had no ill effects. The scary thing is that there are other strains of Ebola that are fatal to humans (Ebola Zaire).
Anyway, it's a little bi
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Point taken, but I think that you're looking at the little picture and not the big one. Viruses have been evolving with us for millions of years (ok hundreds of thousands in our case). While a "curve ball" as you say is possible, it's also very unlikely. The last major curve ball was probably the "black plague" which put a big dent in society but was also highly treatable, only our ignorance kept us from treating it properly. We're much better about these things now.
You could say that AIDs was a curve ball.
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HIV (Score:2)
Yeah, one percent of Caucasians are immune to HIV. Not 1% of people, just 1% of caucasians. HIV goes airborne, bye bye human race that can't afford drugs, which is 99.9% of them once demand goes to 100%.
Adaptability rarely happens over a short period with slowly reproducing creatures. Virii, reproducing at an unimaginably faster rate can adapt faster. It's a race we can never win.
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Genetic resistance to AIDS works in different ways and appears in different ethnic groups. The most powerful form of resistance, caused by a genetic defect, is limited to people with European or Central Asian heritage. An estimated 1 percent of people descended from Northern Europeans are virtually immune to AIDS infection, with Swedes the most likely to be protected. One theory suggests that the mutation developed in Scandinavia and moved southward with Viking raiders.
http://www.wired.com/medtech/health/n [wired.com]
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Why would it "wipe out the bulk of the human race"? We encounter new viruses every year and our immune systems adapt. The workers in question didn't die either. How do you make the leap from a simple virus in an ape jumping to a few isolated humans to it wiping out the human race? Been watching too many movies? How would this be different than say, avian or swine flu? Somehow because it comes from an ape suddenly we're all doomed? Grow up.
Though I agree this particular virus is not a serious threat, I would like for you to imagine for a moment the consequences of HIV were it an airborne pathogen. There is no cure, and we have not developed a resistance for it; Much like Herpes.
Great Caution MUST be exercised when dealing with infectious agents. If you do not think an entire species can be wiped out quickly by a single parasite I would like you to purchase an American Chestnut for "roasting over an open fire." [wikipedia.org] Jack frost is not the only
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I like the irony that the gene therapy developed would save you from the virus you created in the research. So by terminating the research you don't develop the cure you'll later need ;-)
species-jumping (Score:1)
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Avian flu, swine flu, the list goes on and on. Virii are just as, if not more, resilient than we are. We share genetic similarities in enough species than jumping from one to another happens frequently among virii. Everything from AIDS and Ebola to influenza. We are every bit a part of the animal kingdom as pigs, dogs, cats, apes and birds. We're subject to all the same biological curiosities and horrors.
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No matter how correct your post may be, as soon as you type "Virii" all credibility does out the door.
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I happen to like the word. It's much nicer than "viruses"
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We don't really understand the biology of virus jumping species, do we? Other than the few documented cases of some viruses, that is - i.e., this virus x has done it before.
Pretty much every virus we know of has an animal where it usually lives (called a "reservoir"). For example, pretty much all flu viruses are thought to originate with birds, though pigs can also get the flu. Jumping species is not unusual; in fact it's generally considered the mechanism by which humans get viruses. They don't come out of nowhere, they come (originally) from animals, though sometimes they later adapt to where humans are the natural reservoir.
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That a virus jumped from some animal to human is a non-news, but that a specific virus jumping from a particular animal to people is, it seems, a notable scientific news.
My own take on it is... only sort of. It's not so strange that a virus might jump from a specific animal to people. It's more strange that a specific virus might jump from an animal to people. But again, not really. I rate this story as scientifically interesting, but panic-worthy? Not in the slightest. Interesting biology observed, noted... that is all.
Zombie movies are holding back science (Score:2)
I bet there will be the usual "I am legend" zombie jokes now. Seriously, while there are dangers in using a virus for gene therapy .. most viruses .. in fact a good 99% of them are handily defeated by the immune system. Also not all viruses spread easily. Furthermore when they are used in gene therapy their genes are removef are severely crippled
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I was actually thinking about "28 Days Later", but "I Am Legend" can work too.
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Actually, most of them would easily defeat the immune system. But they evolved not to do so, since a dead host doesn't make a good vector...
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In the novelette, the vampire disease blows in on the wind.
So blame present-day Hollywood, not "I am Legend".
Re:Zombie movies are holding back science (Score:4, Insightful)
The lab monkey as desease vector scenario bares far more resemblance to 28 Days Later than "The Last Man on Earth/Omega Man/I am Legend"
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Well yes. The human immune system is pretty amazing. And when it doesn't catch something, huge swaths of people die.
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Actually a 99.9% fatality rate wouldn't even put us into trouble. 0.1% survival still leaves millions of humans alive to repopulate. We're like cockroaches at this point.
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It does put you and me in trouble...
Reminds me of that idea to breed lucky humans. Can't remember where I read that though (I think it was some SciFi).
Phew! (Score:2)
That's a relief, I was worried it'd be a computer thing.
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Surely. Yawn.
Call me when a virus jumps from a Mac to a human.
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Steve Jobs is a sick man.
Lack of numeracy, AGAIN (Score:2)
Instead of a CarbonTax we need a FauxScienceClaptrapHotAirTax. There is far too much of it.
28 days later... (Score:1)
Almost the entire population of Britain is wiped out, save for a few lucky survivors.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0289043/ [imdb.com]
28^W525 days later (Score:1)
I can haz apocolyse
note to self (Score:2)
note to self: steer clear of monkeys.
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note to self: steer clear of monkeys.
You're doing it wrong, mate. Steer at monkeys, hit them, and save the day, Bruce Willis style.
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Like us they are nasty, scheming animals. In Malaysia one time my wife sat down to put some steroid cream on our son's eczema. A monkey casually walked past behind the seat. Too late I realised the walk was just a little bit too casual. It reached out and snatched the tube of cream in an instant, then ran away and started to bight in to it. We were horrified at the potential affect on the monkeys but there was no way to get it back.
Raising revenues (Score:2)
Wrong summary (Score:2, Informative)
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With the new Planet of the Apes movie coming out...
Small pox blankets (Score:2)
The phrase "small pox blanket", while applicable to cases where the disease was spread accidentally via blankets, is better reserved for those cases where disease-carrying blankets were deliberately used as vectors of infection against enemy peoples, such as the seige of Fort Pitt [wikipedia.org].
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Re:Wrong summary (Score:5, Informative)
I think you read the article wrong.
The original source of the infection was perceived to be the rhesus monkey, because it was the only thing with antibodies that wasn't sick (and thus was presumed to be the carrier). The virus either passed from rhesus to human to titi, or from rhesus to titi to human.
Either way, a monkey made a human sick. The article specifically points out that this isn't a common human ailment, so it didn't originate in a human. A human wasn't the "source" of the virus. That's the entire reason it's usable for gene therapy; humans don't already carry antigens for it so we won't immediately kill it if it is introduced into our body with a beneficial payload. Theoretically. After all, even with no previous human exposure, the humans in this case managed to kill it off in four weeks.
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"After testing the other monkeys at the primate center, which houses hundreds of enclosures, the researchers found one healthy rhesus macaque with TMAdV antibodies. That suggests the disease might have arisen in the macaques"
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Not quite that simple. I didn't even read the article and the summary had me scratching my head. That large number of dead monkeys and the humans are merely "ill"? It sounded backwards to me. So I looked at the articles.
Not that they could be blamed for not at lealst doing a quick reading. After opening the links you can see that the article says monkey->human transtion. The journal states it was likely not native to the monkeys, implying Human->Monkey (or possibly, human->monkey->human),
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There are two articles linked in the summary. The actual "summary" itself is actually nothing but the first paragraph of the Science article, copied verbatim, with two links added to it.
The second linked article appeared in PLoS Pathogens, it is the actual research article reporting on the case, and while it does not specifically identify the vector of infection, leaving open even the possibility of introduction of the infection by a non-primate species, they clearly state: "Several lines of evidence suppo
Actually YOU are wrong: (Score:2)
From the article:
"After testing the other monkeys at the primate center, which houses hundreds of enclosures, the researchers found one healthy rhesus macaque with TMAdV antibodies. That suggests the disease might have arisen in the macaques and somehow passed to lab workers or the titi monkeys via shared medical equipment or some other contact between the two species, the researchers report today in PLoS Pathogens."
So manaque -> Human -> titi
OR
So manaque -> Human
I for one... (Score:1)
... welcome our new human killing viral monkey overlords. Better than those DAMN DIRTY APES!
"Within weeks"? (Score:2)
teh zombies (Score:2)
analyzed lung tissue samples from the dead monkeys and identified a never-before-seen adenovirus, which they named titi monkey adenovirus (TMAdV), or "T-virus."
In other news... (Score:2)
New Virus Jumps From Infected Computers To IT Workers.
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Not the first time (Score:3)
This happened back in 1987 at NAMRL (Naval Aerospace Medical Research Laboratory) where 3 handlers (plus one of the handlers' wives - the first human-human transmission) were infected with B-virus (cercopithecid herpesvirus 1, Herpesvirus simiae), two of which later died. From what I was told (from health care workers that cared for them at the time) it was quite a horrible way to die; herpes lesions covering almost their entire bodies.
http://www.brown.edu/Research/Primate/lpn26-3.html
Ebola Next (Score:1)
Wow, yeah, gene therapy, that's great. Who is going to need it if we are all dead? Read "The Hot Zone" by Richard Preston, and you'll then know why this is terribly bad news.
ok now.... (Score:2)
Ok John , which monkeys have you been kissing , we need to know NOW!.....
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No, it involved a vaccination program with SIV-tainted products.
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Having been permanently damaged by viewing the goatse meme a good number of years ago, I still seem to remember that the analogy would be more as if she had had the whole monkey shoved up her ass a few times. Which in HIND sight is more logical, since the monkeys in question in this case look like they must have really small dicks. And she couldn't have infected them if she wore a strap on.
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Is it still "sex" if the entire animal is inside the orifice in question? In other news, who's ready for lunch?
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You forgot about AIDS. [youtube.com]
That didn't jump, it shimmed up some ass-hat's penis... unless said ass-hat had a monkey in his butt, in which case it was a direct deposit deal.
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Re:Oh what could possibly go wrong. (Score:5, Informative)
The California National Primate Research Center. Hmm, does that sound like it's owned by a private corporation or the US Government? I know, lets make a bunch of retarded, baseless accusations under the assumption that it is without first taking 5 seconds to look it up.
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Oh, I assumed that the posting was caused by the spasming bought on by the force with which your jerking knee it your chin.
Re:Oh what could possibly go wrong. (Score:4, Informative)
From Wikipedia: [wikipedia.org]
The California National Primate Research Center (CNPRC) is a United States federal government funded biomedical research facility, dedicated to improving human and animal health, and located on the University of California, Davis, campus.
Yeah, sounds just like a private lab far away from the scrutiny of the public eye. Hell, the freshmen might even have trouble getting into the lab for late-night makeout/pot smoking sessions! Doubt it, though.
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Yeah, sounds just like a private lab far away from the scrutiny of the public eye. Hell, the freshmen might even have trouble getting into the lab for late-night makeout/pot smoking sessions! Doubt it, though.
Davisite here. They would indeed have quite a hard time wandering in. Keeping non-authorized humans out would be enough of a concern purely for the contamination aspect. They study tuberculosis, HIV, and several other diseases out there, and the monkeys aren't cheap. They don't want dirty humans getting their stock sick. The much, much, much bigger security issue is the psycho animal rights movement native to northern California. The primate center is high on their hit list. Security is tight.
If a
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I used to work there about 6 or 7 years ago back when one of my co-workers allegedly tried to steal a monkey although it was determined that the monkey must've escaped by crawling down the drain. If there's one thing a monkey is likely to do it's go up, not run for the middle of the floor and try going down a drain pipe. Everyone assumed that it was a monkey heist that went wrong.
If they started arming the security that was there then, that would be far more dangerous. He's likely to shoot himself in the
Re:Oh what could possibly go wrong. (Score:5, Insightful)
Nothing more than could go wrong with natural evolution over the the same course of time.
See, we have these things called DNA, that occurs naturally, and these things that happen to it called mutations, that occur naturally, and every time we wipe something out or solve a problem, we "force" the organism (indirectly) to move to a mutation that survives. In doing so, nature does the same things as we would do, except more efficiently, more quickly, more randomly and under far less control.
Wait 50 years. AIDS will be back, in a slightly different form. Bird flu will be back. Swine flu will be back (it is already, in various mutated forms that we can't treat). MRSA will be back (because MRSA is basically nothing more than an evolved bacteria).
30 years ago we hadn't even heard of MRSA or AIDS and today they are present most of the world. Guess what'll happen 30 years from now, especially if we eradicate either of those and leave lots more potential human hosts living for longer with freedom to copulate more than previously?
Nothing we do in genetics, or even huge tracts of biology, isn't happening too, now, around you, this second, under far, far less control. And guess what? If we don't tinker with it ourselves, we have no way to detect, understand, treat and cope with any of those natural changes that have a devastating effect on people (i.e. we'd be able to do fuck-all about AIDS, Parkinson's, Alzheimer's, even just simple cancer). Cancer is a naturally-occurring mutation that makes a single cell out of billions in your body go ape-shit and not stop reproducing.
Despite all that, statistics show that people have NEVER lived as long as they do now (and cancer survival rates are phenomenal compared to even 10 years ago). All that's because of people tinkering.
Basically, your argument would make more sense reversed - why aren't we tinkering more? Tinkering helps, yet nature destroys and keeps coming back and back and back and attacking us with new things all the time that we take DECADES to understand.
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Things like making certain parts fluorescent and such. In nature there is an implied improvement in survival and/or reproduction that preserves a mutation and propagates it onward. Humans can create mutations that provide no such advantages.
But the difference is that as human pursue these various mutations, there can be unintended side effects and consequences. Things like
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It is when science goes in unexpected directions that progress is made.
So in a way "What could possibly go wrong" is the desired result.
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Re:Oh what could possibly go wrong. (Score:4, Funny)
Except when the answer to that questions is "zombies."
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Why? It's great!
You have cancer?
Use Public Transport and get cured for free!
(You might get the sniffles free on top)
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Re:Oh what could possibly go wrong. (Score:4, Insightful)
Worse than that.
If clever well funded scientists under careful observation do this there is a none zero chance of danger. However they will publish their findings and the state of the art will advance.
If you make it illegal to do this kind of research then someone somewhere will tinker with it.* They are much more likely to make mistakes and skip safety protocols.
Nothing significant will be learnt from their findings (because they can't publish) but we will face all the danger of their mistakes.
*They may be elite scientist working for military/uber-pharmaceutical company or they may be a less than fully talented fringe scientist in some less well funded/observed company/country - neither of those options are reassuring.
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Holy shit.
http://richardpreston.net/preston-books/hot-zone [richardpreston.net]
That exceprt is horrifying. I could not stop reading it, and wanted to curl up into a fetal ball and whimper. I'm not sure I could read the book, but the exerpt was very compelling reading (apparently). That is some seriously scary stuff.
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Well what did your mother get for fucking a retard?
That's right... You.