Infection with norovirus is something to which the adjective "unpleasant" hardly applies. While it's a self-limiting affliction, if you've ever had it, it's hard to imagine anyone subjecting themselves to norovirus willingly. But if anything illustrates the principle that people will do anything for a buck, this does:
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Most readers probably never gave much thought to tissue culture, the laboratory technique where cells or tissues are grown in flasks or other containers separated from the organism of origin. One of the reasons for doing this is to grow viruses, since a virus needs a host cell to replicate.
In the past week, over 400 students and teachers in the Boston area have contracted norovirus, which causes nausea, vomitting and diarrhea:
Oh, the things researchers get people to do in the name of Science...
When most microbiologists talk about poop, they are talking about bacteria. Salmonella, E. coli, Cholera-- they have all evolved different, wonderfully complex ways of making people poopy.
The Evolution of Norovirus, the 'Gastric Flu' and
I had a case of norovirus last christmas. Spent several hours on the throne holding a bucket. You'd have to pay me a LOT to go through that again; there'd be at least four zeros on the check.
At the time, I found a news article on the outbreak, in which an epidemiologist described the disease as "characterized by the violent expulsion of fluids from the body." That's as accurate and concise as you can get.