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I'll lead you about a round,/Through bog, through bush, through brake, through brier:/Sometime a horse I'll be, sometime a hound,/A hog, a headless bear, sometime a fire." The confusion about identity that the magical Puck inspires in A Midsummer Night's Dream came to mind while I was reading Prion Diseases.
Scientists continue to be puzzled about the molecular identity of the agent that transmits prion diseases and replicates after experimental inoculation, and even manifests "strain" differences, but has "impossible properties" that suggest that it does not contain nucleic acid. This paradox seems best explained by considering that a key part
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