Talk:Vector (biology)

message: Being ignorant of biology, I wonder if this should be moved to "Vector (biology)" for the same reason the stupidly named article "Mathematical group" was moved to "Group (mathematics)" a few eons ago?   Michael Hardy 23:15 Apr 29, 2003 (UTC)
:I think this should be moved to "vector (biology)" too. If nobody objects, I'll do it myself soon; and fix any links, of course. -- Hadal 12:42, 21 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Untitled

message: Apart from both being in the field of biological science, there doesn't seem to be much in common between the vector of disease spreading and the use of vectors in genetics. Should the page be split into two new pages? 203.34.41.43 00:06, 20 December 2005 (UTC)
replies: text: I very much agree with this proposal. Both meanings are quite distinct and would deserve own articles. The same was done in :de - see :de:Vektor (Biologie) and :de:Vektor (Gentechnik). --Yerpo (talk) 14:47, 12 December 2008 (UTC)

text: I agree with the proposal, the terms are different and not related. An article (Vector (molecular biology) already exists, and vectors of disease can be termed Vector (epidemiology). --Abanima (talk) 20:41, 28 February 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: There is already an article called Vector (disease) which contains material to what you propose for Vector (epidemiology). It may be better to rename this or just leave the name as it  is and add the material that would have gone in Vector (epidemiology). WaysToEscape (talk) 01:46, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
replies: text:  Thank you for this info. I believe, the current article can now be safely changed to disambig because these two articles (i.e. Vector (disease) and Vector (molecular biology) already contain the information mentioned here. I'll wait for possible objections for a few days. --Abanima (talk) 14:13, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

text:  In the meanwhile, I added a link to main article, Vector (disease) and tried to disentagle interwiki in languages where I thought I understood the subject of the article. --Abanima (talk) 14:34, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

text:  I removed the  template. --Abanima (talk) 20:27, 24 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Split into two? 

message: Question: What is common between a mathematical vector and a biological vector?
Ans: They could both mulitply.
-wshun 03:55, 11 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  a joke 

message: From CDC glossary - 
Vector: An organism (e.g., Anopheles mosquitoes) that transmits an infectious agent (e.g. malaria parasites) from one host to the other (e.g., humans)
Does anyone disagree with this?
Petecarney 21:58, 30 May 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Mosquito 

message: Firstly, a few definitions. Malaria is not an organism, it is a disease of humans caused by a parasite called plasmodium which is a protist (or protozoa), not a virus. Mosquitos are a host to plasmodium but they are not known to suffer any ill effects from it.
A microbiologist, would say that plasmodium has a definitive host (mosquito) , where it reproduces sexually, and an intermediate host (human), where it reproduces aesexually.
An epidemiologist would say that the mosquito is a vector for the disease malaria because it infect the human with plasmodium which is the cause of the disease. 
There is no contradiction between these two statements.
Epidemiology is inherently human-centered. It contains the greek word 'demos' meaning people - which is also the root of the word 'democracy'.
Check out these two links:
http://www.mansfield.ohio-state.edu/~sabedon/black11.htm#biological_vector
http://www.mansfield.ohio-state.edu/~sabedon/biol3055.htm#vector
They are the work of Stephen T. Abedon,  Associate Professor, Department of Microbiology; The Ohio State University
Quotes from the first link:
(9) Definitive host
(a)  Parasites that go through their sexual stage associated with a given host, that host is called the definitive host
(b)  For example, the malaria parasite's definitive host is the mosquito; this mosquito additionally (simultaneously) serves as the biological vector for the malaria parasite
(10) Intermediate host
(a)  The intermediate host is one that harbors the parasite but associated with which the parasite does not undergo sexual reproduction
(b)  For example, the malaria parasite's intermediate host is humans (though for anthropocentric reasons we don’t typically consider humans to be vectors for the transmission of malaria to mosquitoes; besides, the malaria parasite does not make the mosquito sick)
(14) Parasitic protists (parasites)
(e)  Malaria
(i)   Plasmodium spp.
(ii)  vector = mosquitoes = definitive host
I hope we are now in agreement.
Petecarney 19:14, 3 June 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Definitive host and intermediate host of plasmodium 

message: This page should link somewhere to Zoonosis. I added a line to the end of the introduction, but it could probably be segued better. --96.42.42.75 (talk) 19:18, 14 November 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Zoonosis