Kuru
Kuru is a disease classifed as a Transmissible spongiform encephalopathy (TSE) caused by prions. It was found among women and children in the Fore tribe of Papua New Guinea and was thought to be spread by a form of ritual funerary cannibalism where the brains of deceased relatives were eaten.
Kuru was first studied by D. Carleton Gajdusek, who won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1976 for his work with the disease. As with all prion diseases it is always fatal, with the duration of illness lasting 3 to 12 months from the diagnosis of the first symptoms to death.
In the Mahabharata, part of Indian and Hindu mythology, Kuru is the ancestor of the Kauravas and Pandavas.
Kuru were a UK punk band during the late 1990s.
Kuru is a municipality in Finland, see Kuru (Finland)
