Evolution
Category archives for Evolution
Vpu vs Behe, Round Amillionty
Posted by ERV on April 12, 2011 A couple weeks ago, Teh Discovery Institute held some kind of revival ‘conference’ at a local Evangelical church. The Usual Suspects were there– Caseytits, West, some other guy, but also my HIV Evolution BFF Michael Behe. I ended up not being able to go due to a scheduling conflict. I was at a conference on…
HIV-1: Humans are all pink on the inside. Pink, and CD4+ T-cells.
Posted by ERV on January 10, 2011 There is some percentage of the population who have a better prognosis if infected with HIV-1 than the rest of us. Remember those pirate flags and sombreros I talk about sometimes? Major histocompatibility complexes, type I. Some people put up HIV-1 flags that are easily recognizable as ‘NOT SELF!!’ to their cytotoxic T-cells, so they…
HIV-1 CTL Vaccine: lol, we are screwed.
Posted by ERV on December 3, 2010 Glance back at this post for a refresher on what Im going to write about here. Quick recap: HIV-1 usually evolves around this to ‘hide’ from CTLs. Maybe it puts a sombrero on the skull so the CTLs think its a party boat. But while HIV-1 evolves ways to hide from cytotoxic T-cells, this escape…
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…
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…
Paleovirology– HIV-1s ancestors just got older
Posted by ERV on September 17, 2010 Lentiviruses, we think, are evolutionarily young. For example– you have retroviruses in your DNA (ERVs) from other genuses (genii?) genera of retrovirus that are millions and millions of years old. So we know those other genuses (genii?) genera are millions and millions of years old. Lentiviruses, on the other hand, havent left us many of…
The ERV thats killing koalas: KoRV
Posted by ERV on September 15, 2010 Creationists cant deal with ERVs. They have no answer to the problems ERVs pose to Creationism. They have no alternative explanation for the weight ERVs lend to evilution. However, this doesnt stop Creationists from bluffing/lying to save face in front of the True Believers. One of the more baffling responses Ive gotten to ERVs is…
Quasispecies: FINALLY! A great online resource!
Posted by ERV on August 3, 2010 FINALLY! A free paper that explains the basics of viral quasispecies!!! YAAAAAY!!! Quasispecies Theory and the Behavior of RNA Viruses ARG! I have been wanting a paper like this to come out for AGES! I dont back down from explaining complex topics to you guys, but ‘quasispecies’ is just so weird… I am going to…