Definitions

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

  • noun A skin disease of mice, similar to smallpox, caused by the poxvirus Ectromelia virus

Etymologies

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Examples

  • BASHMAN: In 2001, a team of Australian scientists accidentally created a genetically engineered mousepox virus that killed mice by wiping out part of their immune system.

    Janice Gable Bashman is interviewed by Jonathan Maberry 2009

  • In 2001, Australian researchers tried to create a contraceptive vaccine for mice using mousepox as a transport system; by accident, they created a killer strain of the virus, which wiped out the animals 'immune systems.

    A NEW THREAT IN THE LAB 2007

  • One alarming example of such Federally-funded research reported in the October, 2003, issue of "New Scientist," is the creation of "an extremely deadly form of mousepox, a relative of the smallpox virus, through genetic engineering."

    DOES NEW FORT DETRICK "BIODEFENSE" LABORATORY REFLECT BUSH GERM WARFARE INITIATIVE? 2007

  • Australian researchers recently proved this theory quite inadvertently when they incorporated an immunoregulator gene into the mousepox virus.

    Blowback Brad Thor 2005

  • The result was a seriously enhanced, monster mousepox virus that was more virulent than anything they had ever seen before.

    Blowback Brad Thor 2005

  • Australian researchers recently proved this theory quite inadvertently when they incorporated an immunoregulator gene into the mousepox virus.

    Blowback Brad Thor 2005

  • The result was a seriously enhanced, monster mousepox virus that was more virulent than anything they had ever seen before.

    Blowback Brad Thor 2005

  • The write-up looks back at how Australian genetic researchers accidentally created a mousepox virus of incredible virulence, it begins,

    Alex Jones' Prison Planet.com 2009

  • This unexpectedly made the normally mild virus lethal in mice, even those that were naturally resistant to mousepox or had been vaccinated against it.

    Ethical Technology 2009

  • The Journal of Virology that while developing a contraceptive vaccine to control rodent populations they inserted a gene for an immune system protein into a mousepox virus.

    Ethical Technology 2009

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  • There are many poxviruses in nature, and they infect species that gather in swarms and herds, circulating among them like pickpockets at a fair. There are two principal kinds of pox viruses: the poxes of vertebrates and the poxes of insects. Pox hunters have so far discovered mousepox, monkeypox, skunkpox, pigpox, goatpox, camelpox, pseudocowpox, buffalopox, gerbilpox, several deerpoxes, chamoispox, a couple of sealpoxes, turkeypox, canarypox, pigeonpox, starlingpox, peacockpox, sparrowpox, juncopox, mynahpox, quailpox, parrotpox, and toadpox. There's mongolian horsepox, a pox called Yaba monkey tumor, and a pox called orf. There's dolphinpox, penguinpox, two kangaroopoxes, raccoonpox, and quokkapox. (The quokka is an Australian wallaby.) Snakes catch snakepox, spectacled caimans suffer from spectacled caimanpox, and crocodiles get crocpox. . . .

    Insects are tortured by poxviruses. There are three groups of insect poxviruses: the beetlepoxes, the butterflypoxes (which include the mothpoxes), and the poxes of flies, including the mosquitopoxes. And attempt to get to the bottom of the insect poxes would be like trying to enumerate the nine billion names of God.

    . . .

    . . . The insect poxes may have arisen in early Devonian times, long before the age of dinosaurs . . . and the first insects were evolving. . . .


    At least two known midgepoxes torment midges. Grasshoppers are known to suffer from at least six different grasshopperpoxes. If a plague of African locusts breaks out with locustpox, the plague is hit with a plague, and is in deep trouble. Poxviruses keep herds and swarms of living things in check, preventing them from growing to large and overwhelming their habitats.

    Richard Preston, The Demon in the Freezer: A True Story (New York: Random House, 2002), pp. 64-66

    February 16, 2016