1. From Ebola to COVID, Why Don't Bats Get Sick?
There are deadly viruses that have terrified humanity. Ebola, Marburg, and the all-too-familiar COVID all share a common origin. They originated from the bodies of bats. Bats live with hundreds of these fearsome viruses inside them. Yet, there is a strange mystery. Why don't bats catch these viruses and die? They do not even suffer from a common cold and fly around completely fine. It is truly mysterious. A very special survival strategy unique to bats is hidden here.
The secret lies in the unique immune system of bats. Normal mammals trigger a violent immune response when a virus invades the body. Fever occurs and inflammation develops. It is a defense mechanism to kill the virus. However, the excessive inflammation generated during this process destroys the animal's own organs. The main cause of human death from viruses is also this excessive inflammatory response. Then what about bats? Bats chose the exact opposite path. Even when a virus enters, they suppress the immune response heavily so that inflammation does not occur inside the body.
An immune substance called interferon is always pumped out at a certain level inside a bat's body. In essence, they operate a 24-hour surveillance system to prevent the virus from multiplying. At the same time, they do not launch an unreasonable attack to completely eradicate the virus. They simply treat it as a part of their body and maintain a peaceful coexistence. Instead of killing and eliminating the enemy, they learned how to live with the enemy. Thanks to this, bat cells maintain their health without being destroyed by inflammation even while being attacked by viruses.
What would happen if humans could possess an immune regulation ability like bats? Perhaps humanity would be completely liberated from the fear of numerous infectious diseases. Could the ability of this bizarre creature, which signed a peace treaty with viruses, be the key to changing the future of humanity? In the next chapter, we will delve deeper into the real reason bats were able to equip this infinite immunity, linking it to their dynamic flight capabilities.
2. The Secret to Equipping High-Speed Flight and Infinite Immunity Simultaneously
What is the real reason bats were able to sign a peace treaty with viruses? Surprisingly, the secret is hidden in the flight capability of bats. Bats are the only mammals capable of true flight. The act of flying in the sky consumes an immense amount of energy beyond imagination. When a bat flaps its wings, its heart rate soars up to 1,000 beats per minute. Its body temperature also rises sharply to over 41 degrees Celsius. For a human, this is a state of extreme fever where it would not be strange to collapse immediately.
Moving the body so violently causes cell damage and pours out waste materials. These are free radicals and fragmented pieces of DNA. In normal animals, these wastes would have caused severe inflammation throughout the entire body. However, bats must fly every single day to survive. Therefore, they chose a very unique survival method during the evolutionary process. They completely remodeled their body system to suppress cell damage and inflammation that occur during flight.
As a result, bats completely turned off the switches of specific genes that cause inflammation. They maximized the repair capability to quickly fix damaged DNA. The interesting point is that this defense system works exactly the same way when a virus invades. Even if a virus tries to destroy cells, the bat's powerful cell repair system immediately suppresses it. The super-strong body engine developed for flight has unexpectedly become a perfect shield against viruses.
Isn't it bizarre that evolving to fly led to blocking viruses as well? Thanks to this, bats live perfectly fine for decades while harboring viruses. Compared to other mice of similar size that only live for about two years, this is an incredible longevity. Then, how do bats, with such perfect defense capabilities, find food and navigate in the dark? In the next chapter, we will look into the amazing 3D navigation ability of bats that rule the sky perfectly even when blind.
3. Rulers of the Dark, Designing a Perfect 3D Map with Ultrasound
How do bats fly at dozens of kilometers per hour inside pitch-black caves without colliding, even when there is not a single speck of light? Even though they cannot see, the secret lies precisely in their ears. Bats emit incredibly high-frequency sounds that humans cannot hear through their mouths or noses. This is ultrasound. This sound bounces off objects, becomes an echo, and returns to the bat's ears. The bat calculates this extremely short time difference of the returning echo.
They do not just simply know that an obstacle exists. They calculate the size, distance, and even the moving speed and direction of objects in real-time within their brains. In short, they draw a perfect three-dimensional map in their heads. It is much more sophisticated than the sonar systems of cutting-edge stealth aircraft or submarines manufactured by humans. Why did they evolve to this extent? It was to hunt insects active at night. Thanks to ultrasound, bats easily avoid spider webs thinner than a human hair and catch a single flying mosquito with absolute precision.
There is an even more surprising fact here. When thousands or tens of thousands of bats gather inside a cave, wouldn't their ultrasounds mix and cause confusion? They could easily lose their way due to the noise. However, bats miraculously distinguish only the echo of the ultrasound they emitted themselves amidst the sounds of other bats. This is because they have the ability to finely adjust the frequency or remember their own voice patterns. It is truly an amazing ability.
This bizarre navigation that sees the world only through sound in the dark is the ultimate weapon for survival. Then, what kind of connection does this perfect hunter, the bat, have with the Earth's ecosystem, especially with the coffee we drink every day? In the final chapter, we will uncover the shocking causal relationship of how the human dinner table collapses if bats disappear.
4. If Bats Disappear, Does the Coffee We Drink Disappear Too?
Many people remember bats as merely dark and scary animals. However, bats are great guardians that sustain the Earth's ecosystem. What would happen if bats suddenly disappeared from the Earth? Right away, it would become difficult to even see the coffee we drink every day. What kind of secret connection exists between bats flying in the night sky and fragrant coffee?
The secret lies in the immense appetite and agricultural role of bats. When night falls, bats around the world consume an enormous amount of pests. The number of mosquitoes and pests a single bat eats in just one hour reaches up to thousands. From the perspective of coffee plantations, cacao farms, and orchards, bats are the best natural pesticides. If bats disappear, pests explode exponentially. Eventually, crops will be wiped out or an immense amount of chemical pesticides must be poured. The reason we can enjoy coffee and chocolate safely and affordably is all thanks to bats.
This is not all. Numerous plants reproduce through bats. Some bats live by sucking the nectar of flowers just like hummingbirds. In this process, they get pollen all over their bodies and deliver it to other flowers. Numerous tropical plants that bloom at night rely solely on bats for their reproduction. Worldwide, more than 500 species of plants bear fruit and continue their generations thanks to bats. Popular fruits like bananas, mangoes, and avocados might also disappear from the Earth without bats.
In the end, bats are grateful beings that protect the abundant dinner table of humans. Behind the stigma of being a hotbed of viruses lies the twist of being a giant pillar sustaining the ecosystem. Instead of fearing and rejecting bats, we must protect their habitats. Because that is the wisest way to protect the future, jobs, and dinner tables of humanity.
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