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Chimps, AIDS, And Immunity
Anonymous Coward writes "Researchers at the Biomedical Primate Research Center in The Netherlands have come up with a theory as to why modern chimps don't develop AIDS and its variants.
The chimps in the study were found to share a usually uniform cluster of genes in the area that controls their immune systems' defenses against disease. This lack of genetic diversity suggests that a lethal sickness attacked chimps in the distant past.
The theory postulates that approximately 2 million years ago an AIDS-like epidemic wiped out a large portion of the chimpanzee population. Those that survived developed an immunity to AIDS and its variants.
If this theory holds true it may explain why some humans who are repeatedly exposed to HIV don't get sick."
Anyone know why the article doesn't mention anything about SIV (Simian "IV" instead of Human
"IV). From what I've read in the past, they are remarkably similar...
I don't even WANT to know how those sicko scientists are trying to infect those chimps with AIDS...
Karma: NaN
Those that survived developed an immunity to AIDS and its variants. If this theory holds true it may explain why some humans who are repeatedly exposed to HIV don't get sick
What does one have to do with the other? Besides the fact that there is a quote in the article that states the only way this has a bearing on human immunity is if the submitter is suggesting that those humans with AIDS immunity are evolved from chimps two million years ago which seems highly unlikely.
But the theories are sound... suppose we were all wiped out from HIV/AIDS. Those with this built-in immunity might be the only ones to survive; leaving the future of humankind AIDS tolerant. Makes sense; but again, light on details means there's not much from this article to probve or disprove.
put the what in the where?
My uncle died of AIDS (or complications thereof) just a few years before the cocktail treatments started showing efficacy in extending HIV+ person's lifespans.
:)
I was a little young, so I didn't realize it until much later, but this was a pretty "in your face" demonstration of how timing, in the sense of where you are in the course of human technological development can have a serious impact on your expected longevity.
There are, of course, the obvious facts that a long, long time ago your life-expectancy would be 30 years, whereas now (depending on where you live) it might be near 80. This is a development over thousands of years, though.
It's a bit shocking to think that if my uncle had developed his complications a few years later he might still be around today. I've always taken solace in the fact that the same could be said of my father's friends who were drafted for Vietnam, or my grandfather's friends who died in Korea, etc.
Illnesses seem a bit "different", though. Wars are arguably preventable, illnesses kinda just happen. I'm hoping and hoping that startling achievements in fighting "natural causes" will reach some sort of threshold where we might be expected to live for a ridiculously long time.
Longevity treatments, anyone?
As my father lik@(munch munch)...
the poster got this part wrong. it is an unusually uniform cluster. from the article : "Chimps show more genetic variation than humans in all areas - with this one exception, which is seriously condensed," said Dr. Ronald Bontrop, who led a Dutch team that worked with statisticians from the University of California.
...vividly encapsulates that post-Watergate/pre-punk/coked-up moment when you could trust no one, least of all yourself.
It is actually rather simple why certain people can be repeatedly exposed to HIV and not become productively infected. HIV requires its target cells have two cell surface proteins in order to infect it. One is the basic CD4 T cell receptor. The other is one of two different types of chemokine receptor. There is the CXCR4 and CCR5 receptors. The names derive from a common amino acid motif found in these receptors in most people: for CXCR4 it is cysteine-any amino-cysteine-arginine. For CCR5 it is cysteine-cysteine-arginine. Most of the people who appear immune to the infection contain a mutation in the CCR5 receptor (I'm not familiar with the CXCR4 receptor vis a vis mutations and infection resistance). Thus, HIV can bind to CD4 but because of the mutation in CCR5 it cannot complete the process and fuse with the cell. No fusion, no infection.
This common form of resistance doesn't require any cluster of genes nor any mysterious genetic variation or evolutionary alteration.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
I completely misread the last line as why some humans who are repeatedly exposed to HIV don't get sex. We are talking about code-monkeys, right?
Some other species have been through a near-extinction event, and come out with very little genetic diversity. Cheetahs, for example. It's not clear what that means, but it's been seen before.
Wow, I can't wait til science comes up with a cure for something that could have been contained or prevented, so that I can continue with my self-destructive and socially harmful behavior!!!
people who are involved w/those that are known to be infected w/HIV. These people (for whatever reason) continue to have intercourse w/their mates and do not contract the disease.
"Those that survived developed an immunity to AIDS and its variants. " ...Uh, IANA genetecist, but I THINK the way it works is that those that ALREADY had the peculiar genetic combination that would equip them to survive SIV where the ones that SURVIVED. Through their offspring this combination came to prevail in the population today...
The end quote of the article says If the theory of an ancient chimp epidemic would hold true for humans, he said, "the implications are pretty scary."
Just how are the implications pretty scary? Chimps weren't doing anything to stop the spread of the disease, we are. We're educating people and trying to encourage safer practices. The chimps who were almost wiped out didn't have a 7th grade health class where they learned that condoms can significantly lower their risks of contracting SIV. We do. The places where HIV has become an epidemic are the ones where there aren't such classes. They need them.
Liora
About 5 years ago I worked at the National Cancer Institute, which is part of the NIH in the US. (Ft Detrick, Frederick, MD if you wanted to know) While I was there, my boss, (I was a labtech) did some analysis, and found out that a gene called CCR5 could be in people with a 32 base pair deletion. When this deletion was present from both the mother's chromosome and the father's, the person with the mutated form of the gene was basically immune to HIV even through repeated exposures. This was about 5 or 6 years ago, so I'd say OLD NEWS!
I say we trade the language gene for their AIDS immunity gene.
It would be beneficial to both species. Well, the language gene is arguably more trouble than it's worth, but these monkeys are dumb and will probably fall for it if we throw in a few extra bananas to sweeten the deal.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
There are a group of prostitutes in Kenya that have done their "job" for years, watching their co-workers and customers die of AIDS and yet have never developed the desease or tested positive to HIV. They have clearly been exposed over and over, yet show no signs of infection.
This theory could explain it....
Never by hatred has hatred been appeased, only by kindness - the Buddha
2 million years ago, something happening to the ancestor of modern Chimpanzee isn't going to affect us, unless our ancestors were also involved.
duh! i wish these people would do more research before making such crap as 'it may explain why some humans who are repeatedly exposed to HIV don't get sick.'
Hey, now, that may be true, but I don't think ICANN would appreciate you categorizing them thusly.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
That's what Niles Eldredge and Stephen Jay Gould called it. Basically, evolution by totally getting your ass kicked. No, it doesn't really apply to humans, we're outside the flow of evolution for all practical purposes. We evolve via understanding, not genetics.
=^..^= all your rodent are belong to us
Then I guess that means Jan "The Man" Reno can't get AIDS.
No, but Dick "Stalin in Training" Chaney sure can, and since he's been bending most of America over about a year now, there's a good chance the rest of us over here will bet it too. Our only hope is that he keeps reaming us out with the erstwhile Bill of Rights, rather than his own appendage, but I don't think thats something any of us can count on.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
I cant give you the details but I remember reading an article about it in "New Scientist" so its not just an urban legend. I read it in the print edition but you might be able to find it on their website.
no sig.
There are similar theories that indicate why Africa seems to be hit much harder by AIDS than European countries.
When the "black death" hit Europe, it killed as much as 1/3 of the population. The survivors likely had a genetic advantage that helped them survive. This same genetic resistance which was an advantage 700 years ago appears to be valuable today. Sub-saharan Africa did not suffer the same rampant spread of the plague, and thus those genes were less likely to be preserved in the general population.
Two questions:
How many strains of HIV are there (or that we know about), and what differences are there in their vectors, mechanisms, and effects?
Secondly, has there been any evidence that once infected with one strain, that there is a resistance to a new one? For example, if a Chimp is infected with SIV, is it less likely to become infected with HIV (or vice versa)?
Just wondering if any evidence has cropped up to suggest there is promise in William Gibson's "benign HIV+" idea (I think it was in Virtual Light).
I've got a bad attitude and karma to burn. Go ahead. Mod me down.
If this theory holds true it may explain why some humans who are repeatedly exposed to HIV don't get sick."
They are in fact shaved monkeys, and not people after all?
You can't take the sky from me...
Duesberg's theory that HIV is not the cause of AIDS has been disproved to the satisfaction of every scientist but him. It's not the first time that an eminent scientist found himself unable to let go of a pet hypothesis that turned out to be wrong.
Based on his theory, Duesberg predicted that the drugs developed to treat HIV would do more harm than good. But in reality, they dramatically reduced AIDS deaths.
I'm not defending or advocating the site, but RTFWS.
If you had READ the site he says that people in SA show a lot of AID like symptons like diarehha, weight loss, etc... b/c they are malnurished and don't live in the most sanitary of places.
One of the more intersting things that he says is the way the U.S. classifies people as having AIDs. For example if you have TB, then you have TB. If you have TB + HIV antibodies then you have AIDS.
Is this guy a crackpot? Who knows(he has articles from nobel prize winners on his site), but in any case it's an interesting read and makes you wonder about what the media has been feeding us for years about the disease.
I don't see anything particularly scary about it: the fact that we have the data from chimps may well let us develop better drugs.
If the biologists are "scared" by the fact that 90% of a population may have been wiped out by a virus--well, welcome to the real world. Those things happen to real world species. Humans are particularly susceptible because of travel and high population densities, but we also have a public health system going for us.
Note, incidentally, that infectious mononucleosis probably was also devastating for human ancestors--very lethal and very easy to transmit. Today, it is a harmless disease only because of an odd quirk of the virus and the human immune system.
Learn something about how statistics are collected and how to apply them.
:)
I don't dispute your basic statement that average life expectancy 200-300 years ago was about 30 years. However, you need to look at what that number means.
200-300 years ago a *lot* of people died of childhood diseases. Once you made it past about age 15, you had a reasonable chance of living to see 50, and 70 wasn't completely unreasonable for the non-poor.
The "average life expectancy of 30 years" combined with "most people that live past 18 live to see 50" means that a good third of all people never lived through childhood, and most of these died before age 9.
A large percentage of women died in childbirth also. (It's amazing how that percentage dropped drastically when doctors simply started washing their hands.)
When 1/3 of your population lives to average 5, and 1/3 of your population lives to average about 35 (those childbirth deaths for women pull their average down) and 1/3 of the population lives to about 55...
Gives you an average life expectancy of about 30.
But if you lived to see 15, you had a reasonable chance of living to see 50 and beyond.
We haven't really done too much to extend life. Our average life expectancy has gone up so drastically in the last 100 years because we have beaten most childhood diseases, and reduced the childbirth-related deaths in women.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics.
It's not so much that I object to people lying with statistics... just be aware when you are doing it, okay?
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is... Oops. Frank, I've got your sig again! Where's mine?
WHAT THE FUCK?
Were you dropped on your head as a child? You must have been, either that, or you know what it's like to be "the defective offspring of an inefective drug user... (that is) nothing more than a drain on society..."
I come from a very low class area of a very drug ridden city, and some of the best people I have ever met, also some of the smartest, came to us from drug ridden parents. You have absolutly no right to say anyone has less of a right to live than you. You are no better than any of those people that you say should die. In fact, I'd probably say you were worse. Not only are you stupid and uneducated on the subject, (like them) but you are also prideful, arrogant, and hateful. Personally, if this is the view of the rest of the aids free world other than myself, let me find myself some aids, and get away from ingrates like you.
Thank you, come again.
Forest C Adcock
--Forest C. Adcock--
Presumably, as in the chimps, there are some people whose genes offer them natural protection, and who therefore don't need to take antivirals. If we really understood the genetic basis of resistance, we could identify resistant individuals who could safely be spared the expense and side effects of antiviral medications.
Actually, Chimp years are a lot shorter than Human years. It all still plays out. ;)
(at least that's what a Star Wars fanatic would say...)
You are stupid, in a very fundamental way.
THere doesn't exist any global system to prevent public health epidemics.
Wow, I say something about a really simply concept generally described as "not fucking around" and you think I refer to some health departmentesque goverment sponsored bureaucracy.
you are referring to homosexuality
No, I'm referrring to promiscuity in general. Far from being a bible thumper, I don't care if you're celibate or not, married or not, or even queer. If you could keep the number of sex partners in the single digit count, you'd be doing better than most. Even gays, which I don't care for, lose more points with me for being sluts, than they do for being gay.
if by this you mean drug use
Not in particular, but this is a component. If it were the only component, we could have solved your "epidemic" and the IV drug problem in one fell swoop. I'm sorry, being a victim really sucks. But some people try too damn hard to be a victim, for me to have much sympathy. For fucks sake, if you want to ruin your life injecting heroin, is it gonna take too damn long to bleach a needle first? Who cares whether they end up in the ER with an overdose 30 seconds late?
Blaming AIDS on any one practice, or group
This is actually somewhat intelligent, so I almost feel bad pointing out that you are wrong. The one group that I can blame it on, is humanity, and its entire culture as a whole. We were supposed to have evolved in the last few million years, it's time to quit acting like monkeys for fucks sake.
AIDS is now largely a heterosexual
Which only proves my earlier point that it's a promiscuity problem, not a homosexual problem. Go find a person that you feel like screwing for most, if not all of your life. If it doesn't work out, sit back and think about why, before searching for another. If it's more than one, it's no big deal, but if you can't keep count, or someone asks and you have to sit and think about it for 10 minutes before answering, you have a serious problem.
and developing nation phenomena related to poverty.
Hehe. Those poor people are too poor to not be retarded. Aww. Can't we spend $1500 per month, so that they can live longer and have even more opportunities to infect the few that aren't already showing fullblown AIDS symptoms?
Give me a goddamn break. You should hear some of the sexual practices these people have. We don't need morals to prove it wrong, survival of the fittest is likely to show how good an idea it really is. But no, we'll wait for western science to bail out cultures that don't deserve to survive, and are incapable of finding a cure on their own. And before you go calling me racist, let me assure you that I'm only discriminating against what goes on in their collective heads, not how much pigment is in their skin. Nor would I hold any of them ill will, if by some chance they woke up and had some sense. A racist would continue to try and punish them even after they started behaving, or would overlook that even retards with the same skin color as my own are pulling the same idiotic stunts in my own nation.
There are some true victims out there. Babies born with the disease, people infected through tainted blood supplies. Unfortunately, it will continue to happen, as long as people continue to behave as they do. Hell, there are even some true problems in Africa, and other places, that I think we should try to help them with... but instead, we're wasting money and effort treating a what is, or at least was, a preventable "epidemic". Those are dollars and hours that could have been going toward a cure or vaccine for the next ebola... a disease that will kill africans first, and for which they have no reasonable way of preventing. I'd much rather be spending money on things like that, and if you had any sense, you'd rather that be the case too.
So next time, you decide to trollbash, look first and wonder a bit if maybe the opinion isn't so farfetched, or unfair. I'm generally pretty reasonable, and in this case, there are reasons for beinig less than politically correct on the topic.
" Duesberg's theory that HIV is not the cause of AIDS has been disproved to the satisfaction of every scientist but him."
Oh, you mean like Dr. Gordon Stewart (the former WHO advisor on AIDS),
or Dr. Robert Root-Bernstein (who made a thorough study of the AIDS and could not find any evidence to back up the claim that HIV is the cause of AIDS, that AIDS is a new disease, or that it is contagious)
or how about the Perth Group (a group of medical researchers from Perth Australia) who has an excellent set of links on their home page.
Many many more... just don't have time to post them.
Never never never smoke crack before geometry class!
Not exactly. Male chimps join a different group when they grow up, females stay in the same ones. If a male gets a STD, and then moves to a different group, he could very well wipe out the new one quickly.
It's self-destructive in a fundamental way. Whether there is a cure for this disease or that doesn't change the fact that there will be another one sometime in history, and unless you're psychic you can't predict when or where or whom.
It's socially harmful, because even though you deserve to die for being a slut (man or woman, I'm not sexist), you'll likely spread it to others, some of which will no doubt be... true victims. People that were being decent, and doing nothing that they might have avoided with a few morals or even enlightened self-interest. Heroin junkies, next time you shoot up, remember that you helped and did your part in killing the little babies born with AIDS. It's a team effort, and even if you didn't score one, they couldn't have done it without you!
As for promiscuity, well, what can I say? Apparently, there are ways to even minimize the risks you'd be dealing with. But if the statistics say anything, they say that most sluts are generally too stupid or apathetic to even do this. Of course you have the right to fuck around, but when it comes back to you 10 years later, and bites you in the ass, don't wimp out and cry when I laugh at you. I only hope that you managed to destroy your own life, and not those of the other people around you.
Dig the craaazzzyyyy crackpot doc!
I also have to wonder how he can run together so many different chemicals ("recreational drugs") under a common effect. The chemical makeup of such a broad category of chemicals is pretty broad itself; how can they all have the same impact?
It's possible that many drugs used long-term by large numbers of people could be used as recreational drugs (valium, pain killers, even anti-depressants) so why haven't the users of these drugs developed HIV/AIDS?
I love these conspiracy theorists, though. I especially like the one that says it was a FBI/NSA/CIA biowarfare experiment that got out of control.
Location has a pretty big effect as well. My nephew died of AIDS last year at the age of 25. He was probably infected for several years without knowing. He only found out when his one-year-old son died, in fact. Unfortunately where he lives (El Salvador) there is (virtually) no treatment (or education) available. If he had been born in the States or Europe, he would undoubtably be alive today.
-- It only takes 20 minutes for a liberal to become a conservative thanks to our new outpatient surgical procedure!
A similar arguement is made against HIV/AIDS... How can so many different symptoms come under a common disease? the list of HIV/AIDS symptoms is HUGE and added to every few years. Whens the last time you saw someone with KS (almost everyone diagnosed with AIDS had KS in the early days)? Today it's unheard of. However, it was postulated that "huffers" popular in the 70s may have actually caused KS.
Never never never smoke crack before geometry class!
Then, an update about a vaccine built on a study in kenya.
Essentially, google for "aids immunity africa prostitutes" for more stuff. basically, they found these pockets of women who worked as prostitutes, were repeatedly exposed to the virus, and have never developed HIV. In the Nairobi study, many of them were related.
Of course, there are a couple articles running around that state that these prostitutes were chosen by some diety to be immune to HIV because they live a "natural" life, and aren't pagans. How the rest of Africa is susceptible to HIV/AIDS, then, is unanswerable. Aaah, logic... yummy.
--mandi
What about the old theory that AIDS was a lab-created (aka. genetically modified) virus?
It primarily attacks a bunch of outgroups - homosexuals, promiscuous persons, several african tribes (due to their sexual mores), intravenous drug users - plus a few exposed through medical misadventure.
It is pretty much impossible to come up with a vaccine - mutates too rapidly ("noisy" copying mechanism, several errors per copy, needs two chromosomes per particle to work at all, several active strains from local mutations in a single individual)
Anybody really believe a lab (government or otherwise) - especially with the state-of-the-art in molecular biology at the time - could design something that specific and effective - and get it RIGHT - and KEEP IT SECRET?
No way.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
One has to be careful not to confuse Duesberg's extreme views with the widely-held and far more reasonable suspicion that there are cofactors in addition to HIV that contribute to development of AIDS.
There is no human population more than 35% infected. The other 65% aren't all virgins. Some plagues in the past have had more than 35% morbidity.
I'm getting married next month, and when my wife and I make love on our wedding night, it will be the first time for both of us.
And then 20 seconds later...
sorry couldn't resist - congrats...best wishes.
Couldn't the same "explosion" of deaths be caused by an explosion in population? Higher population without more food then causes starvation. Every late night on TV I see organizations asking for money to feed the starving children all over Africa.
I am also skeptical of the AIDS figures that are coming out of poor nations. Even if the doc in the subject is wrong about lack of actual testing it does make you wonder about the methodology. If the country doesn't have enough money to buy drugs to fight the disease then how do they afford to test everyone at over $100 a pop?
So instead of advocating prevention, you're waiting for tiny little robots? Sure, that's rational...
Of course prevention isn't the best cure - it's not a cure at all. It's called "prevention" for a reason.
The fact is, very few problems like these ever have just one solution. Prevention is one strategy, and there is no reason not to persue it. Yes, if little robots are invented as a cure, I'll welcome them with open arms, but they ain't coming anytime soon, no matter what your imagination allows, and prevention is available right here and now.
No, our CODING DNA is ~98% identical. The main difference between the nonhuman great apes and humans is not the proteins as coded, but the way those proteins are expressed (transcribed then translated). The main differences have to do with gene regulation, which has ties in to "junk" DNA (some of it really isn't "junk" at all...and likely more will be found not be be junk in the future).
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
There was an article earlier today, and one earlier this week, with the word 'evolution' in the title. This brought the creationist cranks out of the woodwork. I really worry about slashdot, do I really want to be here if that this kind of moron is here?
It seems to be a US-only phenomonum. Here in England most people don't care about that Bible crap.
SO the lesson is: don't mention the e-word and the trolls won't bite.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
50,000 monkeys at 50,000 typewriters can't be wrong.
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
I believe in God and that the earth was created, and I believe in evolution. There is nothing contradictory between them, in my view. I had a HS biology teacher explain this about a decade ago. When he explained it it was like hearing a truth expounded by a sage. He said something like this:
The same teacher was able to clearly explain and resolve potential reasons why things like carbon-dating could be off. (He had many potential reasons and was able to show in literature where the published assumptions can be found, such as the assumtion that the level of Carbon-14 has always been the same, even though some evidence has been submitted which is contrary to that.) In fact all of science is based on assumtions (I think they are correct, but we could all be wrong) that laws of science are Universal, that matter/energy cannot be created nor destroyed, and so on.
//TODO: Think of witty sig statement
Meaning absolutely no disrespect to either you or your late uncle, AIDS does not "kinda just happen"; nor, for that matter, do many other illnesses.
AIDS/HIV "just happened" to many people who received blood and blood products in medical procedures. Especially hard hit were those with hemophilia. They were stricken at a horrible rate.
Isaac Asimov's 1992 death from heart and kidney failure was a consequence of AIDS contracted from a transfusion of tainted blood during his December 1983 triple-bypass operation.
Babies are born with it, rape victims contract it, and people getting organ transplants are infected by it.
Let us not stigmatize everyone who is suffering with, or has died from, this horrible disease by painting with too wide a brush and categorizing the victims as drug addicts and people who engage in unsafe sex.
Nice try.
Hetrosexual aids victims account for about 20% of victims.
Acceptable losses? Would your hetrosexual aids victims (not deserving, according to you) agree with your conclusion?
48% of adults with AIDS are females. Doesn't do much to support the 'targetting gays' argument.
The majority of HIV carriers are white. There goes the race argument.
Come back when you come up with real evidence to support your bigotry.
Even funnier is the notion that AIDS is smart enough to remove the 'undesirables', but that plane-crashing terrorists are so stupid they only attack the most underserving, right? Thats how you see it, right?
"Old man yells at systemd"
The implications are scary because several things:
(as it's friday afternoon, I am kinda lazy to provide links, but all should be found on the web here or another)
1) HIV is spreading, and doing so at a faster rate than before. Partly it's because of people are getting the idea that the "cocktail treatment" has effect -- but the truth is that it's not nearly that effective for the amount of casual sex people tend to want to carry.
2) HIV mutates faster than we can come up with drugs for them. some strains, in fact, was resistant / became resistant (through mutation, presumably) even before a vaccine / treatment was made into mass production
3) many leads for possible cure has turned out to be dead-ends. I am sure many have heard about the people (select few, 5% or so?) who contract HIV but does not actually exhibit the symptoms of AIDS for a long time (15-20 years) -- Eventually it turns out that these are people who simply had a combination of good immune system and a "weak" strain of HIV. they eventually got AIDS.
4) vaccination requires a response from the immune system toward an agent (mutated, harmless version of HIV, for example) -- however this response we want to elicit from the immune system is *not a natural one*, meaning that it is not one that occurs, or have been observerd to occur (through much searching, as you could imagine) natually, and worse yet, *MAY NOT EXIST*.
there are a couple others; but unless much more breakthrough level results are obtained, soon, the AIDS epidemic will become a catastrophic event that will have no less impact on the world today as the Black Plague had in times past.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
Yes, it does apply to humans.
I've heard this debated millions of times. But what people fail to realize is that our "understanding" may actually cause us to get our "asses kicked".
There is nothing that will throw us out of the evolutionary loop. In fact, the damage we do to our environment maybe one thing which wipes us out. We can't survive on "understanding" alone.
Maybe you would like to explain how the people of Africa are the most genetically diverse peoples of the planet? Maybe you would like to explain sickle-cell anemia. That is one adaption which, although it causes a trade off, helps save lives. Please tell me how understanding will beat malaria.
See, for example if we killed off "all" the mosquitoes they will only come back because some simply won't die. DDT spraying made the population diminish, but some were not susceptable to the toxin. So in fact, our "understanding" made it worse.
While we try to fight AIDS through education, a mutation would be the only real way to eliminate the threat.
Basically: We have sexual reproduction, we have genes, we do have mutations.
Think about it: Even though some "freaks" reproduce, not all do.
Get your Unix fortune now!
"The majority of HIV carriers are white. There goes the race argument."
your assumng whites are not the target. thats a pretty big racest statement.
women can be Gay. since there is a large population of Gay men that are maried and keep it a secret,this comes as no surprise.
20% is considered acceptable losses in certian military situations.
Do I think its a designer virus to destroy any specific subset of humanity? no. I just wanted to point out that your counter points are very flawed.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I really hated you before because of your past comments, but this one takes the cake.
Not only is your comment based on religious ideas of morality, not true morality, but you don't understand genetics.
Only through a program of unchecked sexual promiscuity can we try to develop humans who aren't likely going to catch the disease.
Your other posts about Herion "junkies" is funny at best. You even say who cares if a junkie dies. That is the proof that you sir have no morals. Of course, you can't save them all. But to judge someone's character on their lifestyle or vice... wow, that is low.
Drug use is a problem that should be dealt with as a health issue, because it is. You really don't understand the causes of drug use do you? Mental Illness for one. To blame someone for having mental illness is like blaming someone for being diabetic.
From another post you made:
We were supposed to have evolved in the last few million years, it's time to quit acting like monkeys for fucks sake.
But once again you don't understand. We are very much like monkeys. We share 99%+ of the same DNA. We also share about the same amount of behavior. It was once believed that monkeys were punished for their sexual promiscuity and their voices removed. It seems that you also think in the 19th century.
Our closest relatives don't (all) live monogamous lives. The further you get from us relationship wise, the closer you get to monogamous apes and monkeys. Remember we are related to apes not monkeys.
Another comment you posted about the number of sex partners:
someone asks and you have to sit and think about it for 10 minutes before answering, you have a serious problem.
Says who? In fact, the same people who told you this non-sense also gave you "be fruitful and multiply". That is one reason the Catholic church goes against the laws of humanity, they ask for celebacy for their priests and to not use protection or birth control. Abortion (mainly as a birth control device) goes back thousands of years. Something is making me think you simply can't get laid.
Hehe. Those poor people are too poor to not be retarded. Aww. Can't we spend $1500 per month, so that they can live longer and have even more opportunities to infect the few that aren't already showing fullblown AIDS symptoms?
What kind of sick person are you? These people are usually here in the USA; not "over there". We have the responsibility to try to contain the illness right? I mean you act as if the poor don't come into contact with the rich. Like no rich doctor with high morals has never taken advantage of the fact that a mother of three has not enough money to feed her kids. You are one sick bastard who actually deserves to get AIDS. You: "I'm rich and moral, you are poor... You deserve to die"
Give me a goddamn break. You should hear some of the sexual practices these people have.
I guess you are talking about the people of Africa. One practice that you are likely demonizing is the practice of drying of the womans vagina before sex. The reason for this is symbolic to show the woman hasn't committed adultery. This causes bleeding sometimes and people spread HIV because of getting it through other means. Of course you easily demonize their practice... it's not yours. Freedom sucks doesn't it.
We don't need morals to prove it wrong, survival of the fittest is likely to show how good an idea it really is. But no, we'll wait for western science to bail out cultures that don't deserve to survive, and are incapable of finding a cure on their own. And before you go calling me racist, let me assure you that I'm only discriminating against what goes on in their collective heads, not how much pigment is in their skin. Nor would I hold any of them ill will, if by some chance they woke up and had some sense. A racist would continue to try and punish them even after they started behaving, or would overlook that even retards with the same skin color as my own are pulling the same idiotic stunts in my own nation.
Blah blah. You are a racist... or actually ethnocentric. You stated it in plain words. You don't even think these cultures should survive. These are people you are talking about... their people are suffering and all you can say is: They deserve it! Western cultures have destroyed perfectly fine "third world" cultures with their "updated technologies" and the like. Africa may suprise you, the peoples of Africa are the most genetically diverse people on the planet. They are likely going to develop a natural "cure" (impossible? auto immune diseases aren't really "cured") before your pasty ass.
From another poster (in case you missed it):
The roads, the infrastructure is what allowed AIDS to get free wo where ever it was deep in africa. It could have been stopped in amy areas, Africa, SF, AMERICA. but that would have been admitting to problems in our practices or, in the case of Africa, admitting that the rest of the world might have to take into account darkies. that, yes, what happens there can effect the rest of the world.
Get your Unix fortune now!
We already have an effective vaccine for HIV: education. Nobody has to be afraid of catching HIV because whether they do or not is entirely under their own control (with a few exceptions like rape or malpractice). That doesn't mean that we shouldn't also look for treatments or invest in health care (people do all sorts of things voluntarily that result in disease or death, and we have an obligation to help them), but it does mean that nobody has to be afraid of HIV.
And, in fact, education and prevention are our only options. Treatment will never solve the crisis in Africa--the continent is so poor that people can't even afford aspirin or childhood vaccinations--long term treatment for a complex illness like HIV simply is not going to reach most people.
More importantly, however, my point is that we will have epidemics with 90% mortality sooner or later. It has happened before (to other species) and it will inevitably happen to humans at some point. That's just the way biology works. There is no point in being "scared" of something that is basically inevitable. We can, however, reduce the impact of such an epidemic through better public health measures.
So how many of you Slashdotters submitted this story about a week ago when it first came out only to be rejected and just now see it? Not that I did, but I'd love to know why this one was picked over the others (assuming there were others).
I'll take the flaming troll for $100, Alex.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
This is a FANTASTIC book and I strongly recommend reading it, too. As we get farther and farther from Patient Zero for AIDS the whole "AIDS came from contaminated polio vaccine" theory gets more and more swept under the rug. It shouldn't. For an overview of ths book / topic, check out this article from The Atlantic magazine. What is really interesting is how the scientists are SO DRIVEN to disprove this theory - they are not objective at all. Check out, for exaple, this Nature article. These articles always say something like "Important Doctor X tested remaining polio vaccine sample Y and detected no trace of AIDS/chimp DNA" and the headline conclusion is that Hooper's theory has been disproven. Balony. There are not representative surviving samples for ALL lots of vaccines that were used and it would only have taken ONE SINGLE CONTAMINATED LOT to kick off the AIDS epidemic. Tests can NEVER prove there were NO containated lots of vaccine; it can only prove there WERE by FINDING ONE.
Just about anyone in Europe and most of US/Canada today can trace their family to someone that survided the plague.
Haha.
Only through a program of unchecked sexual promiscuity can we try to develop humans who aren't likely going to catch the disease.
So people are just this biology experiment conducted by enlightened individuals like yourself. And it doesn't matter how many of the experimental animals lives are messed up, as long as you succeed with one that is immune to AIDS. And I'm the person to be hated?
You even say who cares if a junkie dies.
Far from it. Life is precious in a way that nothing else is. What is totally worthless to me, and to the junky too, is their behavior. I do hate that behavior, mind you. That there are reasons for a junkie to become a junkie is without doubt. Some of them might even sway my sympathy... obviously we need a way to help them become strong enough to resist the temptation. I'm sure some would refuse such help, it is their right... but I'd find such a choice deplorable.
We are very much like monkeys. We share 99%+ of the same DNA.
We also share 60-70% of our DNA with amoebas. Even by the greatest stretches of my misanthropic opinion, we aren't very much like amoebas. And you're ignoring both enviromental influences to a person's behavior, and yes, even their own free will. If there is no room for that though, and we all do things like some little pre-programmed robots, then we might as well become extinct. What would be the loss?
Our closest relatives don't (all) live monogamous lives.
Some birds live monogamous wives. I suppose this proves that the apes further away from us evolutionarily speaking, are about to grow wings and flutter away?
Says who? In fact, the same people who told you this non-sense also gave you "be fruitful and multiply".
Good rhetoric. Too bad I'm an atheist. For those reading the thread, I think this phenomena has to do with someone unexpectedly speaking a truth(me) and the mindless idiots not being able to fit it into their preconcieved ideas about who should have what opinion, and the easiest way to cut everyone down to the same level.
What kind of sick person are you? These people are usually here in the USA; not "over there". We have the responsibility to try to contain the illness right? I mean you act as if the poor don't come into contact with the rich. Like no rich doctor with high morals has never taken advantage of the fact that a mother of three has not enough money to feed her kids. You are one sick bastard who actually deserves to get AIDS. You: "I'm rich and moral, you are poor... You deserve to die"
Yes, I deserve to get AIDS, because I choose to exhibit behavior that not only protects myself from it, but from others around me. How fucked up is that? I'm the sick one? No, you don't deserve AIDS because you're poor, you deserve it because you're a stupid slut that likes to fuck around. Really stupid, if the statistics on condom use are to be believed.
I guess you are talking about the people of Africa. One practice that you are likely demonizing is the practice of drying of the womans vagina before sex. The reason for this is symbolic to show the woman hasn't committed adultery. This causes bleeding sometimes and people spread HIV because of getting it through other means. Of course you easily demonize their practice... it's not yours. Freedom sucks doesn't it
That is one thing I had in mind, yes. There are others, such as one way to magically heal yourrself, is to screw a virgin. But let's get back to the first one. Never mind that it makes sex uncomfortable or even painful for the women. Never mind that it makes them bleed, or more susceptible to AIDS and other STDs. Let's focus on the superstitious notion that it somehow proves fidelity. Haha. This from a culture where fidelity is an alien concept if you happen to be male? Yeh, this is a culture that deserves to be spared from the extinction that will soon happen. I have trouble even believing the projections for how many adults will die within a few years of each other over there. The children not infected themselves, will have trouble finding someone left to raise or feed them.
Blah blah. You are a racist... or actually ethnocentric. You stated it in plain words. You don't even think these cultures should survive.
Ethnocentric implies that I feel my own native culture is any more worthy of saving. After all, you're a member of it. This speaks mountains about what it deserves. You have no clue as to cause and effect, you believe in saving only those people who will go on to hurt others, and ignore those more deserving. You fall back on the lame excuse that people can't be any other way, so we should just "accept them for who they are".
These are people you are talking about... their people are suffering and all you can say is: They deserve it! Western cultures have destroyed perfectly fine "third world" cultures with their "updated technologies" and the like.
Well, duh!. You just noticed this? How many undeserving cultures have we wiped out? But one comes along, and shows itself to maybe be worthy of extinction, and you decide to save that one? Is it because you have some perverse need to screw up the planet, or are you burdened with so much white guilt that you'll save the next victim no matter how much he doesn't deserve to be saved, just to prove how good of a guy you are?
Even within Africa, there are cultures that deserve to be helped, to be encouraged. Most of those are now gone. Not that we necessarily destroyed them, but we should have been there. Atrocities that never even made the fucking news over here. Genocide that regularly makes the top of the charts throughout all history, and we simply ignore it. Hell, in some of these cultures, violence was unknown. Where were you then?
Blame the roads all you like. Certainly they are responsible for many of the airborne viruses that are a constant threat to everyone. AIDS though, it doesn't travel on roads. It travels in whorehouses.
I was reading "Kanzi". Pygmy chimps have sex constantly. They do it as often as people give hugs at a Christian fundamentalist revival festival. It's speculated that we would be the same way if we didn't realize that having sex leads to children, and that we WERE the same way before we invented language.
Which is relevant because if they had AIDS, they'd all be infected in no time. It's not like they have monogamy to keep them safe.
Jesus Christ! How old are you? It is incredibly naive to think you can know anything with any certainty. And especially with reduced sexual experience, it would certainly make it all the more difficult to find out 5 years from now that your wife is a closet dyke for example. Never assume you know or are in control of anything that involves anyone besides yourself. Doing the same thing as your parents does not necessarily make it a foregone conclusion that things will turn out the same for you. We live in a different society than our parents did at our age, and that makes all the difference in the world. People continue to grow throughout thier lives, but at different rates. Its this shift of paradigm that can cause a rift between those who at one time were bound as tightly as can be. On the other hand, things might work out exactly as you expect, but if you were that lucky, I'd suggest playing the lottery. Just a heads-up.
What could possibly hurt the security of the American people more than giving our own government the ability to hide its
I heard Craig Venter speak in London a few months ago. He discussed this gene at some length. This gene exists in about 9% of caucasian people, but only
What's most interesting is that using gene divergence/dating techniques, the emergence of this gene in the caucasian population can be dated to just 700 years ago -- such a recent emergence is necessary to explain such a signficant difference between two groups of humans.
700 years ago was, of course, when the Plague hit Europe circa 1300 and killed off more than half the population; and CCR5, in addition to conferring immunity to AIDS, is highly effective at conferring immunity to the plague. Thus this gene got a big boost in the Caucasian population as people who didn't have it died more frequently, whereas in Africa, without the plague, it remained a minor genetic factor.
Pretty cool, huh?
true, but only to a very limited extent. the unfortunate fact is that education does not make the disease *safer*, it just means that it transmits less -- but still very dangerous.
it is very important to note that to effectively contain the disease, reproduction between uninfected individuals and infected individuals must be completely eliminated. This basically erases a large portion of population who are unfortunate enough to contract HIV from the gene pool. Furthermore, even when you do eliminate this disease for this generation, it can still cause trouble later on (because frankly -- let's face it, you won't make HIV *extinct*). whereas a true vaccine will not have any of these troublesome side effects.
More importantly, however, my point is that we will have epidemics with 90% mortality sooner or later.
maybe. however, even if it is "inevitable" as you say -- it does not decrease its "scariness" (hereas defined along the line of "causing traumatic effects"). Instead of thinking if *you* are afraid of dying -- imagine what a horrible thing it would be if out of every 10 people you know, 9 died. (family members and all). to many, that really IS scary -- not in the childish "scared of death" sense, but rather "scared / worried of harm comming to loved ones" sense. Maybe you would understand better if you had children.
lastly, i agree with you that education of the dangers of HIV/AIDS is extremely important -- but to say that it is our only options -- that would be a dark day if it was true. I still keep my hopes up for the medical breakthroughs, because otherwise you are not combating the disease, but merely running away from it.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
"This includes gays, infact, if AIDS was for gays, they may be the first to develop resistance."
Correct me if I'm wrong, but don't you have to survive an ailment before you develop immunity? Add to that the homosexual community, by default, just doesn't reproduce. How can you pass on a gene when your activities dictate that you don't reproduce?
As for Africa, well...savages will be savages. It's strange that for a country as rich in resources as Africa, they really haven't made much for themselves. They are very good at continuing poverty, war, and the spread of communicable diseases, most notably AIDS. Education may be helpful but money has to get to the educators first. Who's preventing that? Local warlords. Africa, IMHO, will always be wild along with it's inhabitants.
India on the other hand has plenty of cash in a *few* spots. The rest of the country is dirt poor. Poorness in and of itself doesn't hurt/help the spread of AIDS but lack of education can lead to further outbreaks.
China? Don't know alot about that. I know that in most of Asia prostitution isn't verboten, it's that dirty little public secret that everyone does and nobody talks about.
There's hope for some countries but others are just SOL.
About 100,000 years ago, there was a population bottleneck in humans. We got down to about 10,000 individuals, and we are all descended from these people, which accounts for the *lack* of genetic diversity among modern humans.
The cause of this bottleneck *could very well have been* a virus which rampaged through the population at that time. It needn't have been HIV, though -- more likely some airborne virus like influenza.
Perhaps one of the sub-goals of the human genome project could be to search for those parts of the genome that are conserved across all humans, just like in these chimps. This might give us clues to what caused the original bottleneck. It might also serve as a warning as to where our monoculture is most vulnerable to being hit in the future.
For further interesting reading, Google "Seven Daughters of Eve" or just go to here.
"In The Seven Daughters of Eve, he gives us a firsthand account of his research into a remarkable gene, which passes undiluted from generation to generation through the maternal line."
DNA is a Turing machine. You, however, being dynamic and emergent, are not.
> Vaccines are made from primate livers
Which vaccines? I think you are wrong. Certainly, I can find no evidence that hepatitis vaccines are made from primate livers; they have been made from blood plasma (of infected humans) and by recombinant DNA techniques, with yeasts as the vector. Hepatitis has been isolated from, and studied in, marmoset livers; but I doubt that these livers were used for *human* vaccination.
Can you provide *any* authoritative reference to support your strange theory? I'd be interested.
-- Mike Greaves
There is a simple test of similarity that requires no sequencing at all: chop up DNA from the two species with restriction enzymes, melt, and anneal them together. This is trivial to do (trivial being a relative term) with DNA chip technology. You bind human DNA to a chip and anneal chip DNA. The better the match, the brighter the fluorescence (or the stronger the image on a film plate or scanner if using radio-labeled DNA).
One doesn't need for the genome of chimps and humans be completely sequenced to be able to determine how similar they are.
The main differences between human and chimp DNA (and with any other great ape) IS due to gene regulation patterns and "junk" DNA. There are no magic human proteins. There are no special chimp proteins. Proteins are proteins are proteins, for the most part. The minor variations in amino acid pattern in many of them are largely irrelevant and fit into the 98% identity between chimps and humans at the genetic level.
In Bushworld, they struggle to keep church and state separate in Iraq as they increasingly merge the two in America.
hooray, more dead chimps.
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
"So people are just this biology experiment conducted by enlightened individuals like yourself. And it doesn't matter how many of the experimental animals lives are messed up, as long as you succeed with one that is immune to AIDS. And I'm the person to be hated?"
Well, you said you were an athiest... but you also don't believe in evolution now? What do you believe then? I'm not conducting the experiment life is, nature is.
Some birds live monogamous wives [sic]. I suppose this proves that the apes further away from us evolutionarily speaking, are about to grow wings and flutter away?
What? I know that birds in a lot of cases live monogamous lives. But my point was that those closest to us, the ones who also share our behaviors and quirks. And dumbass... apes aren't close to birds wtf.
You fall back on the lame excuse that people can't be any other way, so we should just "accept them for who they are".
No, I don't demonize someone because they caught a disease which also happens to be trasmitted sexually. Even someone who has only had sex once can get AIDS. That is all it takes. You could also get the flu if you don't wash your hands but I don't go around saying "These sick fucks deserve to die" like you do when you call AIDS victims sluts. Set aside Africa (you hate them, fine). Let's look at someone here who catches it their first time ever having sex; they are a slut?
white guilt
You know... the only people I know that use this term are the Klansmen who insist on threatening people on holidays. White guilt? No. We spend millions researching cultures which have been dead for thousands of years and we know that we should learn everything we can about everyone we can. There is no excuse to just destroy a whole culture because you think they are not worthy. You are not the one who decides who get's the axe. The fact that you laugh at indigenous and tribal peoples customs shows your ignorance and -centricism.
Even within Africa, there are cultures that deserve to be helped, to be encouraged. Most of those are now gone. Not that we necessarily destroyed them, but we should have been there. Atrocities that never even made the fucking news over here. Genocide that regularly makes the top of the charts throughout all history, and we simply ignore it. Hell, in some of these cultures, violence was unknown. Where were you then?
Even within Africa? Even? Once again who are you? We have destroyed cultures because of sprawl and greed, that is sick. We did ignore atrocities, but not I. When those people were killed in Rwanda for example all people like you said was "clean up these dead niggers". To me, you see, it's not Africa but it's also South America, America 400+ years ago, Europe before the Christians... almost all of Asia as well. It's not "white guilt" (a term used exclusively by racists who fear that 'others' will out grow us) issue, it's an issue over human rights, it's an issue over the fact that people see race and differences in culture as an excuse to murder others.
Blame the roads all you like. Certainly they are responsible for many of the airborne viruses that are a constant threat to everyone. AIDS though, it doesn't travel on roads. It travels in whorehouses.
AIDS did come in with the roads. The peoples in South America are losing their way of life because a highway goes right through their village. Everything travels in with the roads, shipping routes and etc. How did it get anywhere you jack ass? Did someone cosmically fuck someone on the other side of the globe?
[In America] AIDS is spreading in poor areas (we can do something about that), through casual homosexual encounters (we could allow marriage), through drug use (we could stop that), there is ways to stop it. In fact, the first way would be to stop being so greedy and lowering the costs of prevention (we can do that) and drugs (we could do that). Oh, and we could stop infringeing on others cultures and lifestyles. If they die, they die. If they don't they don't. It's a crap shoot, but don't talk shit.
Get your Unix fortune now!
There are really four major classes of immunodeficiency viruses(IV's): Bovine (BIV), Feline (FIV), Simian (SIV), and Human (HIV) in order of genetic material. What is particularly interesting is that the entire code of the BIV is found in FIV indicating that lions may have been originally infected by eating contaminated buffalo.
The same hold true as we go on-- the entire FIV is found in SIV indicating that the virus jumped from cats to apes. And the same holds true for SIV to HIV.
Although AIDS is always fatal, that is only what occurs when the body has lost the fight against HIV. We now know that 1 to 2 percent of people are unable to contract the virus, and 6 to 10% of those who are infected never get AIDS (after 20 years, showing no lymphatic damage, etc). These people *never* show any symptons and could live long and healthy lives never knowing aside from a test, that they ever were infected.
This means that the mortality rate of a total HIV epidemic (where I think we are headed) would be 88-96%. Those that survive would not be susceptible to AIDS (though most of them may be infected).
Now note that a large number of lions are infected with FIV, but here have never been observed AIDS in these animals, yet FIV causes AIDS in house-cats.
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