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How the placenta evolved from an ancient virus

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Re: How the placenta evolved from an ancient virus

#3

Post by buran77 »

KuhlMensch wrote: post #2

I like to hope, if I am ever afflicted by a virus; the inevitable distress of "A virus? woe is me" will be tempered by the pithy thought, "A virus whence is me".

Unfortunately trying to get something useful from a viral infection is almost like trying to get bitten by a radioactive spider in order to get superpowers. The problem is that as useful as those new "features" may be, they always need many generations and many more mutations to be integrated and turn into something practically useful. In the meantime you would at best have to live with a painful spider bite and some radiation poisoning.

Re: How the placenta evolved from an ancient virus

#4

Post by hypertele-Xii »

buran77 wrote: post #3
KuhlMensch wrote: post #2

I like to hope, if I am ever afflicted by a virus; the inevitable distress of "A virus? woe is me" will be tempered by the pithy thought, "A virus whence is me".

Unfortunately trying to get something useful from a viral infection is almost like trying to get bitten by a radioactive spider in order to get superpowers. The problem is that as useful as those new "features" may be, they always need many generations and many more mutations to be integrated and turn into something practically useful. In the meantime you would at best have to live with a painful spider bite and some…

The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago.

Re: How the placenta evolved from an ancient virus

#5

Post by lundswe »

buran77 wrote: post #3
KuhlMensch wrote: post #2

I like to hope, if I am ever afflicted by a virus; the inevitable distress of "A virus? woe is me" will be tempered by the pithy thought, "A virus whence is me".

Unfortunately trying to get something useful from a viral infection is almost like trying to get bitten by a radioactive spider in order to get superpowers. The problem is that as useful as those new "features" may be, they always need many generations and many more mutations to be integrated and turn into something practically useful. In the meantime you would at best have to live with a painful spider bite and some…

We have to hope for a real vaccine offer and behave responsibly.

Not hoping to be in a distopic yet magic world.

Re: How the placenta evolved from an ancient virus

#6

Post by andrewflnr »

I'm just realizing that several shark and snake species also give birth to live young, but I don't know whether they have placentas or similar structures. I'm sure they couldn't be homologous to mammal placentas, right? (Certainly not if this article is right about the timeline.) To what extent do viviparous animals converge when it comes to the mother/child interface?

So some sharks have placentas, as mentioned in this article about tiger sharks secondarily losing theirs: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4906603/ I wonder if I'll ever run out of huge, obvious questions I haven't even begun to explore.

Re: How the placenta evolved from an ancient virus

#7

Post by chrisma0 »

Retroviruses and our coexistence with them is fascinating to me.

Fun fact: "About 8 percent of human DNA comes from viruses inserted into our genomes in the distant past, in many cases into the genomes of our pre-human ancestors millions of years ago." https://newsroom.uw.edu/news/genes-%E2%80%98fossil%E2%80%99-...

Endogenous retrovirus Wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus

Re: How the placenta evolved from an ancient virus

#9

Post by johnnujler »

Every thing about life is so fascinating. I have always wondered how viruses have persisted for so long if they need a host to survive and it took us millions of years to go from single celled to multicellular. I wish there was a way to know everything and become good at everything. :/
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