ERVs
Category archives for ERVs
Barnyard Week: White Chickens are ERV mutants
Posted by ERV on May 24, 2011 So I got the idea to do this after stumbling across a bunch of viral/farmyard stories this week. I know its currently Tuesday, not Sunday, so, SURPRISE!!! BARNYARD WEEK! If you ERV readers are anything like me, you have spent countless nights tossing and turning in bed, unable to sleep, unable to stop pondering one…
CfERVs? I think you mean GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRVs!
Posted by ERV on May 19, 2011 SQUEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!! The first sequenced carnivore genome shows complex host-endogenous retrovirus relationships. ONE note of dismay: They did not include a picture of the boxer they sequenced. WTF??? Substitute picture: see more dog and puppy pictures Fun quickies! Despite Arnies love of getting into the garbage, dogs have much less junk DNA via proviral ERVs than…
HERV vs HIV
Posted by ERV on May 13, 2011 CTL-based vaccines and HIV-1. Ive written about them quite a few times here on ERV. Quick recap– All of your cells fly ‘flags’ that show circulating cytotoxic T-cells what proteins they are making. Normally, a virus-infected cell will put up virus/pirate ‘flags’, the T-cell will ‘see’ something is wrong, and convince the infected cell to…
ERVs and ALS
Posted by ERV on March 8, 2011 Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, aka Lou Gherigs disease. Pretty much sounds like hell, to me. Your mind is fine, while your body is collapsing around you– slowly but surely paralyzing you, taking away your ability to eat and breathe, while your mind is fine and dandy so you are acutely aware of what is happening to…
ERV Starship
Posted by ERV on November 19, 2010 I guess Im going to have to change the name of ‘ERV’. Before I was just concerned. Now, ERVs are officially not so special at all. Viruses, all kinds of viruses, are all over the place in genomes– from insects to humans. Endogenous Viral Elements in Animal Genomes Carl Zimmers take: Your inner viruses: the…
ERV at the Texas Freethought Convention!
Posted by ERV on November 11, 2010 Even though the real ERV is a) hiding in an undisclosed location and b) blinded by a week long migraine from this stress, you can still enjoy me via video taken at the Texas Freethought Convention! First of all, that was an absolutely fantastic introduction. I loved it! I felt like a total ass for…
Extinct retroviruses, ERVs, Frankenstein viruses, and chance
Posted by ERV on November 5, 2010 The endogenous retroviruses in your genome are dead. Dead. Junk. They no longer code for functional, infectious viruses. Those viruses are also extinct. They were floating around thousands, millions of years ago, infecting stuff, and now they are hanging out in your genome instead (100% of humans are infected, *wink*). ERVs are viruses that we…
REPOST: Frankenstein Viruses
Posted by ERV on October 27, 2010 This is a repost from the old ERV. A retrotransposed ERV Its Halloween time, and we just got a BRAND NEW FRANKENSTEIN ERV! To prime you all for that post, heres a repost on an OLD FRANKENSTEIN ERV! Remember, ERVs are junk. These are not zombie viruses. Scientists are not taking totally functional but silenced…
Even MOAR Endogenous Non-Retroviruses
Posted by ERV on October 18, 2010 Now COMMON. COMMON. What is this nonsense? COMMON. … How am I supposed to have a blog titled ‘ERV’, crowing on about how awesome and special endogenous retroviruses are, when scientists keep friggen unearthing endogenous NON-retroviruses. COMMON!! First there were Borna disease viruses. Then there were filoviruses. Then there were hepadnaviruses. And NOW, NOW there…
Endogenous non-retroviral retroviruses: Hepadnaviruses in the bird genome
Posted by ERV on September 29, 2010 Hepatitis B is my favorite non-retrovirus. Why? Because its a retrovirus Heres another reason for me to love it– Its viral family, Hepadnaviridae, inserted themselves into bird genomes 19 million years ago. Genomic Fossils Calibrate the Long-Term Evolution of Hepadnaviruses *happy-prospector-dance* Okay, this is like, the billionth time this has happened in the past few…