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Ancient Viruses Altered Human Brains
giulioprisco writes: A new study from Lund University in Sweden (abstract) indicates inherited viruses that are millions of years old play an important role in building up the complex networks that characterize the human brain. The Lund study shows that retroviruses seem to play a central role in the basic functions of the brain — over the course of evolution, the viruses took an increasingly firm hold on the steering wheel in our cellular machinery. In particular, the retroviruses seem to play an important role in the regulation of which genes are to be expressed, and when."
William Burroughs figured this out decades ago.
Based on our collective voting patterns, YES.
Table-ized A.I.
Something new to blame my lack of endowment on! Thank you!
IT Professional.
This poster is likely a specimen having a recently-infected brain that may be ideal for studying this phenomenon in its early stages.
Table-ized A.I.
Agent Smith: "I'd like to share a revelation that I've had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you're not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops an equilibrium with the surrounding environment, but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed. The only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet; you are a plague and we are the cure."
I can't removatize Bushificationisms from my head brain. Should I visitify a therapisterizer?
A thrud xposyer will helpificate this problemification....
You have the right to remain sentient. If you give up the right to remain sentient, you will be elected to public office
A few years ago New Scientist had an interesting article that made me look at viruses in a different light.
It basically said that viruses allow different species to exchange genetic material beyond what would be possible with
sex alone. They had some example like the development of the placenta :
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2012/02/14/mammals-made-by-viruses/
will latch onto the "your kid will never be anything more than a mere monkey" argument.
The article lies. It says, "[t]he reason the viruses are activated specifically in the brain is probably due to the fact that tumours cannot form in nerve cells, unlike in other tissues."
Leaving aside the awkward phrasing ("form _in_ nerve cells" [emphasis added]), it turns out that 1% of brain tumors are neuronal tumors. "Tumors of the central nervous system that contain abnormal neuronal elements, termed neuronal tumors, make up approximately 1% of all brain tumors." (http://pubs.rsna.org/doi/pdf/10.1148/radiographics.22.5.g02se051177)
That said, I think I understand the gist of the argument. But I didn't know that neuronal tumors were so rare (or supposedly impossible, according to TFA) and felt compelled to fact check that assertion.
From the article: "tumours cannot form in nerve cells". This, of course, is BS that was discredited a couple of years ago: http://m.medicalxpress.com/new... Perhaps we should have a Slashdot discussion on lazy scientists failing to keep up with developments in their own field. If you write without bothering to read, you end up with... well, something like Slashdot...
"Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
Recently infected? Feels more like a primordial specimen that couldn't step out of the initial pool.
I would consider human brain development is due to some odd genetic mutation when
human had lost their hair. When climate changed, those who could figure out how to
survive the cold winter lives on.
For the hairless homo sapien to keep warm in cold climate is quite complicated as the
fur from other animal is not quite ready to cover the body part. The cold weather forms
some kind of selective breeding. To survive hairless, human were forced to use the brain.
Reminds me of the virus that was found in the sequels to Ender's Game - there was an alien species that was completely dependent on the virus for survival, to the point that they believed it might have been directly responsible for their intelligence. Also, it brings to mind something like a biological version of the virus in Snow Crash, the concept that you could upload information to human minds that would instantly change the social structure as a whole.
Once again, life imitates art.
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
People actually believe this crap though, and it's pretty frightening. Not saying humans don't have sociopaths and psychopaths, but if we could rid ourselves somehow of our current political classes of people the problems would not be bad.
For example, people in Africa that have lived for countless generations on the same land are having it stolen by "tycoons" and politicians. They have to move now because they can't survive without any land to live on, and their land is converted to exploit it's resources for a select few to profit at the expense of the masses. Happens all over sadly.
I think we should convert to a very successful time in Athens, where politicians were selected by lottery... Out with the political class and the people that can buy them.
-The wise argue that there are few absolutes, the fool argues that there are no probabilities.
Doing so would require the ability to breed, so that's a no go on slashdot.
Or was it just someone terminally stupid misinterpreting their ergot-derived delusions and cursing humanity with the result?
Scientists, as a rule, don't claim their theories are iron-clad facts - that's what the mass media does.
"they had everything figured out" Where did you get this impression of science?
I am a professional scientist. I'm a published author, and most of my colleagues are respected scientists. None of us, and no one in my field that I've ever met, thinks that they have everything figured out. And none of us have ever publicly stated so.
In fact, science is based on the idea that we are always adding to our total body of knowledge, and that new discoveries fill in the gaps of previous theories. Over time, we approach a larger view of the total picture of how all information and knowledge relates to each other. The fact that there is always something new to learn, and new discoveries and contributions can be made by people just like you...that's what makes science so powerful and beautiful.
Perhaps you would enjoy learning about the history of this useful thing called science that benefits you every day of your life....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_method
That's a flu I can use!
The evolutionists used to say that human intelligence could be explained by evolutionary process of natural selection, and they made no reference to viruses
The article has nothing to do with natural selection. There are two main components to evolution, mutation and natural selection. Natural selection is the description given to processes that determine what mutations remain in the gene pool, and what ones die out due to giving a poorer chance of survival and/or reproduction. The article here is about the mutation side of evolution.
Indeed. I suspect this specimen is immune to these virsuses.
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Until or unless the earth is hit by a meteorite or volcanic action causes an ice age - The future of life on planet earth will consist of humans and ponds (lakes) of green slime used as a food source. That's it. We will grow our population to the point where all "biologically-available" carbon atoms will reside in two species of life: Humans, and our food source. All other life, and the land and energy and ecosystems that they require, will be eliminated to support the expansion of the human population. We are doing it today on a scale that is on the virge of wiping out many of the higher order species. Over time all of the rest of them will follow. The earth will resemble a mechanical structure that looks more like the death star from star wars as we cover the planet with habitation cubicals, and lakes of green slime where we recycle our dead bodies and consume the calories and nutrients of the slime. Since we are unable to biologically synthesize our own food, only the most space and energy-efficient species that will be our food source will share the planet with us. That will most likely be a photosynthetic green slime. We will reach that point because we will continue on our current path of harvesting just one more animal species for food, cut down just one more forest for space and to build homes with. Just one more - it can't hurt right? The earth will tolerate it - right? We have no ability or desire or control to reduce our population growth, and we will ultimately use all available space and energy to cover the last square foot of available space, the last calorie or kg of supportable biomass will be contained in either the body of a human or our companion food species.
Actually, these aren't viruses at all, but fragments of exploded Thetan souls....
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
It isn't stupid to believe what you see. If you're tripping and you don't know you're tripping, it seems extreeeeeeeemely real. Heck, when I was about 10 or 12, I had a dream where my Action Man was alive. It was so real that the next day I was convinced it was true, even though I was really old enough to know better...
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
By Greg Bear, explored this idea of retrovirus's controlling evolution about 15 years ago. It was a very good read.
I am generally fascinated though also terrified by this sort of thing based on the following thought pattern: https://xkcd.com/1163/
Its also highly unlikely that junk DNA would have remained in the genome if it had no purpose
This is a common error; the reverse is actually true. Cells (and by extension, us) serve DNA. Cells (again, by extension, us) are merely vehicles for DNA to replicate - they're the unit of evolution. As a consequence, the DNA does not care whether it contains 'junk' bits. It only cares if it's faithfully copied. Btw, this is an astonishing consequence of evolution that personally blows my mind. If anybody's interested, read The Selfish Gene by Richard Dawkins.
Note: I'm aware that DNA is a mindless macro-molecule. It just easier to anthropomorphism it for the purpose of discussion.
PCB
'Men never commit evil so fully and joyfully as when they do it for religious convictions.' B. Pascal
The mathematicians used to say that one plus one equaled two, and they made no reference to fractions. Meaning previously, they never said fractions were required for two to appear. Now these people are saying that one-half plus one-half plus one-half plus one-half equals two. Meaning that if there were no halves, there would be no two. So why did they say they had everything figured out? Were the mathematicians wrong previously? Were they lying? Are they lying now?
~Anguirel (lit. Living Star-Iron)
QA: The art of telling someone that their baby is ugly without getting punched.
Umm, no. If 1 cell takes more energy to replicate than another due to excess DNA that add nothing to its fitness in a survival situation then guess which genes will eventually win. DNA doesn't "care" at all, its simply a biological instruction list, nothing more. If its fit it'll survive, if it isn't it won't.