When I was in college, many many years ago, there was this one course that was the cause of much misery and frustration. 'Management and Operations' didn't sound all that lethal but the professor who took the class assumed all his students were whiz kids with advanced knowledge of computer programming. This made him teach the class at a pace that made me feel like the last, pathetic, hyper ventilating runner in the 100 metre race during school sports. This is an apt analogy, considering my unwavering failure in anything athletic all throughout my school days.

But let's come back to 'M and O' as the course was referred to. After securing consistent 'Ds' in the class I decided I had to be proactive and talk to the professor. I thought of appealing to his sympathetic side. “You know, Sir, I have been trying so hard to understand the chapters but I just can't seem to get it. Do you think I'm stupid?” His brusque answer was: “I don't know. Do you think you are?” Crushed and deflated all I could do was to leave and resign myself to another D to join its identical siblings.

But think – if I had been to college now I could have just told him 'Sir I have been infected with the 'stupid virus'; please give me a retest. For all you know maybe that's exactly what it was when I couldn't get 'M and O' though why it didn't affect my 'Understanding Jazz' class is a complete mystery.

According to Scientists at Johns Hopkins Medical School and the University of Nebraska there is a virus that may render people a little stupid. These modern day wizards were apparently doing some other unrelated study (probably during break time) that involved taking throat swabs from people when they 'stumbled upon the discovery', says BBC online.

This algae virus can affect our cognitive functions – how our brain makes connections with what we observe. Of the 90 participants in the study, 40 tested positive for the algae virus. Those who tested positive performed worse on tests designed to measure the speed and accuracy of visual processing. They also achieved lower scores in tasks designed to measure attention. (the Independent, UK).

We have trillions of microbes in our body says these scientists who themselves are obviously immune to the virus in question. Most of them are harmless but some of them may affect cognition and behaviour without causing much harm to the person's overall health. This means there could be thousands, even millions of underperformers who are getting flak from parents and employers for no fault of there own.

Imagine the possibilities though. Students can come up with 'I couldn't come for the exam because I caught the 'stupid virus', Miss'. Cheating boyfriends could try justifying their infidelity with 'it's that virus that's making me do this'. Employees could even wangle some extra medical leave especially when their bosses are breathing down their necks for the next brilliant project.

The insanity of present day politics could be plausibly attributed to a spread of this virus that causes politicians to deny what they said on record the day before or make suicidal remarks about religion.

This medical breakthrough could also explain why there are so many songs with such stupid lyrics and sung by popular and obscure pop stars. Sings Avril Lavigne: “He was a boy, she was a girl, can I make it any more obvious?” Well ‘duh’ I would think.

Then there's Lil Wayne who threatens with his song: 'Don't (unprintable expletive) with Wayne. Cause when it Waynes it pours'. Waynes? Wow. Wonder what happens when it starts 'wayning' and he'll be singing 'wayne dwops keep falling on my head’!

Peter Andre's '“Do Do Do Do Do! This is Insania!” is indicative of a certain degree of cognitive deficiency. There's also Des'ree's “I don't wanna see a ghost, it's the sight that I fear most, I'd rather have a piece of toast, watch the evening news.” Well frankly, so would I, but that's no reason to make a song out of it.
And when a teen idol gets deliriously happy over the weekend singing

Yesterday was Thursday, Thursday Today i-is Friday, Friday (Partyin')/We-we-we so excited /We so excited/We gonna have a ball today/Tomorrow is Saturday And Sunday comes after … wards, it does call to question the adolescent's learning capacity. Is this stupidity natural or caused by that insidious virus?