By now you've probably heard/read about the relationship of HIV resistance and hominoid evolutionary genetics. The original paper in Science that started it off is titled Restriction of an Extinct Retrovirus by the Human TRIM5α Antiviral Protein; quite a mouthful. Lucky for us Carl Zimmer has an excellent exposition as well as a background primer, while John Hawks offers further thoughts looking at the various hypotheses through the lens of someone with a deep grasp of paleoanthropology.
- Log in to post comments
More like this
Immunity to viral infections sounds like a good thing, but it can come at a price. Millions of years ago, we evolved resistance to a virus that plagued other primates. Today, that virus is extinct, but our resistance to it may be making us more vulnerable to the present threat of HIV.
Many…
This is a repost from the old ERV. A retrotransposed ERV :P
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…
Last November, scientists announced they had revived a virus that had been dead for millions of years. The virus belongs to a special class that multiply by inserting their genetic code into the genome of their host cell. When the cell divides, it makes a new copy of the virus's genes along with…
This is a repost from the old ERV. A retrotransposed ERV :P I dont trust them staying up at Blogger, and the SEED overlords are letting me have 4 reposts a week, so Im gonna take advantage of that!
I am going to try to add more comments to these posts for the old readers-- Think of these as '…