Overall structure and ways of different epidemics that were

[Makubex]

Im going to write a science fiction short story, but first of all i need facts. One of my ideas is based on a virus, that we suppos could wipe out humanity (sounds a bit drastic neh?).

But i can't write without facts, so would somebody please direct me somewhere else, or if you could tell me of different epidemics over the centuries? I would like to know the main ones, and the structure of the bacterias, viruses. Too learn how they worked, or work, to get the overall picture, to invent something of my own. Something that would sound at least true enough to my teachers when i hand the story over.

I know I sound naive, but you don't learn without questions. And I'm not too well educated in the structure and ways of bacterias, molecules, viruses et cetera et cetera.

If I chose the wrong forum, please tell me, but please help me if you are willing to tell me the basics!


Best regards, Jesper.

[James]

I think searching the bubonic plague on wikipedia would be useful.

[AstusAleator]

You might benefit from visiting a site dedicated to epidemiology

google it

[Darby]

The premise is flawed, based upon an assumption about epidemics that doesn't fit reality.

Major epidemics of dangerous diseases are restricted to large population pockets - to work out to "thinner" populations requires less virulent variants.
The Spanish flu epidemic depended upon the crowded conditions of World War I trenches and inner cities, and the fraction of the overall population it touched in the more spread-out areas of the world was still relatively tiny.

It is almost a given that diseases get milder over time. There's evolutionary pressure on the microbes to keep the hosts up and moving about so that offspring can be spread, so the milder variants are much more successful than the nasty ones.

Of course, all of this doesn't keep fiction writers from using the idea anyway.

[mith]

pandemic, it's a flash game hosted on newgrounds.

[Locus]

One of my ideas is based on a virus, that we suppos could wipe out humanity.

Jesper, this virus must to distroy or at least to attack nerve cells - for distortion there function. But, at this case for this virus quate difficalt to tranmit from each ather - it is possibly by blood, or also you can to reat that this virus has several forms and one of them attack, (or ever distroy - attack without distroing is better), and reproduct on nerve cells, and for spreading them has another form that transmitted with the bllod to the lungs or skin and spread among the people. But two form must be virulent.
And how virus attack and reproducte you easyly can find at the wikipedia. (first result from google by word "virus")