AIDS-Like Virus New Threat To Koala

An anonymous reader writes "A virus that may weaken the immune system of koalas, similar to HIV in humans, is a new 'wild card' among threats facing the species and nearly all koalas in the Australian state of Queensland could already be infected."

Comments

There is only one possible conclusion

[Anonymous Coward]

GOD HATES KOALAS!!1!!

Retro is cool

[MightyDrunken]

The nature article to the news story seems very interesting. As retroviruses have to integrate themselves into the cells genome to replicate, if the retrovirus infects a germline cell the virus can become incorporated into the animals genome and passed to their offspring. This seems to be already happening with this virus and it gives a chance to study the process in action.

About 8% of our genome is probably from ancient viruses which "invaded" our genome millions of years ago. Generally they become deactivated by mutation but they have been implicated in the growth of mammal embryos and the placenta. It would be pretty cool if the placenta, a defining feature of most of the mammals is due to a virus!