Did Learning to Fly Give Bats Super-Immunity?

All I got from Learning To Fly and the related parafernalia, was munchies.

Comparing the genomes of two very different bat species, Cowled and colleagues found that the genes that detect and respond to DNA damage had undergone a sudden change around 88 million years ago, when bats' ancestor's first took to the skies. Because the change wasn't seen in the genomes of other mammals, Cowled attributes the change to the animals' newfound ability.

A lot of words, but not much info.

Its not helping them very much with white nose syndrome which has claimed over 4.7 million bats in North America.

Sheer nonsense, afaict.

There's no connection between flying and immunity to viruses whatsoever.

Coevolution with specific viruses gives rise to immunity - this is on the 'lock and key' scale of biochemistry which is very mutable, specific to entry of viruses into cells for example, and having nothing at all to do with the physiology of flying. The viruses that bats live with don't cause the same harm as when they cross into humans, because there are subtle biochemical differences in the relevant molecular structures. Those differences have arisen due to living with those viruses, and have nothing to do with flying. The 'immune' configurations were successful, obviously, because the 'not-so-immune' ones perished under pressure from the virus.

The common cold we suffer might kill a bat if it crossed over the other way, for example - any animal can be laid low if we don't have resistance to viruses we haven't been subjected to the selection pressures.

We're all interested in bats now, due to the recent Saudi cases of batbadness and fear of a pandemic. I'm just avoiding caves until further notice.

I agree. I know that real science moves in small slow steps. I'm a little tired of seeing uncertain correlations being heralded by reporters as a break through.

When there's no decent breaking-news, the number of flimsy 'breathrough discoveries' goes up.It varies with a number of factors, but the alcohol Christmas period is a sure-fire winner.

Time for an avatar pic change........