81–90 of 111 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Thank you! Have you found anything that would indicate any level of actual similarities between S protein and syncytine? Beyond both of them being of virus origin and starting with letter S? I couldn't find anything stronger than "german doctors say" which means nothing.
> I couldn't find anything stronger than "german doctors say" which means nothing. That's all there is to it.
It is also being researched how endogenous retroviruses are part of aging. The very rough idea being that at some point long in past a retrovirus became endogenous and provided a pathway for aging increasing the evolutionary rate of that organism, which would then out-compete most of the immortal organisms with time. Something like: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20346965/
That's incredibly interesting! Do you know some (pop)science books that could help learn more about viruses? I found two that sound good from description: "Viruses: A Very Short Introduction" by Dorothy H. Crawford and "A Planet of Viruses" by Carl Zimmer. Would you recommend any of these or something else?
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. :/
I think the plain answer is that if they didn't, you wouldn't know about them. Just like all other parasites. In some sense, we're all parasites on plants, that in turn feed on the energy delivered by the giant fusion reactor in the middle of our solar system. In the case of viruses, remember that there are viruses for much simpler organisms, like bacteria. And yes, you can use those to treat bacterial infections.
Those are called bacteriophages (a misnomer, since they don't actually eat bacteria).
I have a theory that bacteriophages originated as a biochemical weapon for inter-bacterial competition.
If you think about it, the ability to produce packets that target and penetrate a competitor's cellular wall and inject a payload is pretty useful. Payloads could be as simple as a toxin to start.
From that point, you could have stepwise improvements for deliverables that disrupt reproduction in the target (for example by cutting apart DNA strands), by inserting junk genetic material to evade self repair mechanisms, by inserting or removing specific genetic sequences to create other vulnerabilities, that insert the specific genes to make copies of the delivery system and various payloads (this is useful even if the 2nd gen copies are poor and don't include those same genes), and then finally a fully self-reproducing package that can spread exponentially.
At that point the 'weapon system' can evolve independently, and indeed co-evolve with it's target/host to (probably) jointly outcompete other species including the originating species.
Even prior to full self-reproduction, proto-viroids might act as a horizontal gene transfer mechanism that can exhibit familiar 'selfish gene' patterns and mediate various feedback loops between bacterial species. After 'escape' any species remaining with proto-viroids mechanisms would likely be parasitized and bootstrapped into actual viruses through competition and crossovers, or have those mechanisms suppressed into remnants indistinguishable from endoviruses (presuming endoviruses can even be identified in organisms as simple as bacteria).
An arms-race of proto-viroid attack vectors might also be the antecedents of and/or the driving force behind the need for various organelles that distinguish the more complex eukaryotes from bacteria.
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I don't recall where I read it but I recall that the nucleus of a cell started out as a captive bacterium.
Not likely for nucleus - https://doi.org/10.3389/fmicb.2020.571831 Gemmata obscuriglobus is pretty interesting, and one could imagine how you go from it to nucleus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemmata_obscuriglobus
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Just a wild thought: if aliens wanted to change a genome of some species, what are the chances they would construct viruses to do that? AFAIK CRISP uses something similar.
That would probably only work if it gave the altered species a significant advantage (or if you had a system to detect and penalize/eliminate individuals depending on their genome, at scale).
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Just a wild thought: if aliens wanted to change a genome of some species, what are the chances they would construct viruses to do that? AFAIK CRISP uses something similar.
That would probably only work if it gave the altered species a significant advantage (or if you had a system to detect and penalize/eliminate individuals depending on their genome, at scale).
It is also being researched how endogenous retroviruses are part of aging. The very rough idea being that at some point long in past a retrovirus became endogenous and provided a pathway for aging increasing the evolutionary rate of that organism, which would then out-compete most of the immortal organisms with time. Something like: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20346965/
That's incredibly interesting! Do you know some (pop)science books that could help learn more about viruses? I found two that sound good from description: "Viruses: A Very Short Introduction" by Dorothy H. Crawford and "A Planet of Viruses" by Carl Zimmer. Would you recommend any of these or something else?
So they don’t need to spend all that tax payer dollars on researching this.
God made man. End of story.
It is also being researched how endogenous retroviruses are part of aging. The very rough idea being that at some point long in past a retrovirus became endogenous and provided a pathway for aging increasing the evolutionary rate of that organism, which would then out-compete most of the immortal organisms with time. Something like: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20346965/
No virus needed. Humans are currently (or were very recently) under enormous evolutionary pressure to get smarter. The ability to adapt is likely itself a trait as you suggest, but it makes sense that it can vary over time as needed depending on environmental factors.
Relevant: egg laying mammals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monotreme?wprov=sfla1
Some sharks can have so-called 'virgin' births.