this post was submitted on 16 Sep 2025
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I did some light research and asked AI, which said it would be extremely dangerous. But come on, it wouldn’t be that dangerous, right? We evolved from animals that lived in the ocean.

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[–] ronigami@lemmy.world -2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah there is a lot of stuff in the water but there’s a lot of stuff in the air. Each day you come in contact with tens of billions of viruses, right?

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

And you have a lung as a barrier. That's supposed to exchange the oxygen and carbon dioxide, while keeping most of the rest out of the bloodstream. Nose, mucusa, bronchia also do their thing. So your blood specifically does NOT come into contact with billions of viruses. I mean you also not inject air into your blood vessels... But there's really a lot happening to not let any virus from the air into your blood.

In the end you have organs for a reason. You can't just do random things and think nothing is going to happen.

[–] ronigami@lemmy.world -3 points 1 day ago (2 children)

So basically the immune system just kind of sucks? I mean trees don’t have one and they’re fine so I guess it’s just supplementary and not that effective compared to other things?

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Your body is one system. Your blood cells, lungs, bronchia all collaborate and work together to pull off the task. I'm not sure if "sucks" is the right word here. But you won't survive without lungs nor will you survive without blood cells and that part of the immune system. They're not seperate.

And concerning trees, they have an immune system as well: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature05286 / https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_disease_resistance#Immune_system

[–] CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

And concerning trees, they have an immune system as well: https://www.nature.com/articles/nature05286

Sort of, but not on the same scale as us. Generally, the default for anything not a vertebrate is to have innate immunity systems like inflammation, but no adaptive response. Although, there are parallels to white blood cells that have separately evolved in certain other branches of the animal kingdom.

[–] hendrik@palaver.p3x.de 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Sure, I mean trees and humans are very different species and have different inner workings. Though I'm pretty sure it's worthy of the name immune system. Plants have specific proteins to handle things, and I believe they can even send chemicals through the organism to respond. It's a very different kind, though.
I mean the entire discussion is a bit far-fetched... Trees don't have blood as we do either. Or hands to inject themselves with seawater...