I just hate that the smallest sinus infection can affect my overall system by producing massive headaches, or that these mofo organisms can just trek up my nose and feast on my brain cells. Clearly the Earth atmosphere is just too welcoming; selection on this trait was never forced, and here we are.
The minute we start making cyborg augmentations to improve filtering of our air ducts, I'll be the first in line.
Your eyes are actually an outgrowth of your brain and they're exposed right out in front. The eyes have their own extra defenses though.
Still, we have highly-effective sensors in other parts of our bodies, further away from the brain, and surely we could drop that check somewhere else. At least when it comes to eyes, one can make the argument that they should enable split-second reactions to run from that predator as soon as you spot it, so they should be as close as possible to the mainframe... whereas nobody is going to die if they can only smell wolf poo a second later.
I'm still alive today because I can detect smoke very early. This ability has saved me from indoor electrical fires and wildfires. Hunter gatherers who lived in makeshift shelters probably depended even more frequently on this ability.
If you're really worried about defending your brain from all comers, you should really start by having all your maxillary teeth pulled and replacing them with a denture plate. Their roots are a lot closer to your brain than you likely realize, and an untreated maxillary abscess is much more likely to quickly progress to fatal encephalopathy than you are to ever insufflate water containing N. fowleri.
Not the brain, just nose and mouth. Saying bye to colds, headaches, allergies, respiratory infections, with a simple filter? Fuck yes :)
> you should really start by having all your maxillary teeth pulled
Oh yeah, if I weren't so poor I would have done that years ago. I still hope to be wealthy enough, one day, that I'll be able to replace all my teeth with artificial ones that don't decay.
So, a mask with extra steps?
That, and you can be choked to death while eating always reminds me it's more a cruel joke than an intelligent design.
Market it as a COVID-19 solution, and you won't have any issues finding funding :-)
CDC is right. The route from bacteria to brain goes trough olfactory nerves and tract that connect directly to the brain. Just swallowing water is not dangerous.
Given the recent fatality, erring on the side of caution seems quite understandable.
If I were living in the region served by Brazosport Water Authority, I'd be more interested in the criteria used to proclaim the safety of the rest of the service area, especially after perusing this:
https://cen.acs.org/articles/93/web/2015/09/Brain-Eating-AmoebaScoffs-Chlorine-Water.html
The CDC says people cannot get infected by swallowing contaminated water
Those two statements seem to contradict each other.