HIV is older than you think
on
The DNA Bomb
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· Score: 2
Recently I heard a NPR broadcast regarding some scientists that were able to create a roadmap based upon the known mutations that HIV has undergone. They used powerful computers and created a computer model of HIV they then had this model mutate forward. Later they compared their results with HIV from the period they mutated their model to.
Once they proved that they could determine what HIV would mutate into next they turned the computer model on a reverse course. They went back at least as far as the 50's. Then they took samples of virus fossils from hospitals in Africa.
They determined that these samples from some unknown disease in the 50's was indeed early HIV. It is possible that HIV existed for many years prior to that. They could only locate the samples as far back as the 50's.
I believe the show that I heard that on was the Todd Mundt show. It aired about 2 months ago.
You are quite correct that there is bound to be many insect-lik creatures roaming the galaxy in this planet or that. Of course that is very true on our planet. On another planet with a completly diferent evolutionary path anything is possible. Creatures with three legs and no real 'front' could be the main species. On another planet the inteligent species might have evolved out of practically anything we could think of.
Based upon my reading of bound collections of paper sequentially ordered with symbols representing sounds and ideas regarding Star Trek, specifically 'I am Spock' by Leonard Nimoy. The character of Spock was made more human as Gene believed that the viewers would not understand a completely alien creaure and there was the costs involved with the makeup at the time.
Of course the rest of this is simply conjecture as most of the inteligent and semi-inteligent species on this planet are bipedal mammals. Mountain Gorillas show some inteligence, Chimpanzees show inteligence and many of our fellow bipedal hairless ape neighbors also show some inteligence as well.
Of course some scientists recently performed some inteligence tests with Dolphins and have proven that they can recognize themselves in the mirror and will look at marks that have been added to their bodies. Something that was once thought only possible with the brains located in the skulls of apes and of course the hairless apes that we are.
As for the existense of insectoid inteligence I would have to put forth that it would be very unlikely. While many insects are 'social' creatures many of the them are in hive environs. For the most part the only insect in the hive that is supposed to have inteligence would be the queen and even that would be debatable.
Since this dicussion could go on for ages and the end result is impossible to determine as it is highly unlikely that we will be able to bring actual alien life into this conversation. I shall leave you with the above thoughts.
Gore did not invent the internet. What Gore did invent was the term Information Superhighway. He has been credited with being the first politician to use that term.
"That is all I have to say about that" - Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump
The only facts that I have presented are those that I have witnessed myself. It does indeed take longer for a Windows NT or 2000 machine to recover after a power loss when checking the filesystem than it takes a Linux system running on top of the ReiserFS.
What I would like to see is real-world benchmarks that take half a year or more and involve more than simply, "How dang fast can we make this thing go Goober?" I am more concerned with long term spead and reliability. How fast is that Database server after it has been in operation for half a year? Even with regular maintenance there could be some slow down in performance over time.
Once those tests are performed I would make my choice based upon that information. In the meantime I am forced to go with my own observations.
Okay, NTFS is Journaling. Have you ever taken a look at how long NTFS takes to check a drive? I do not have any numbers right in front of me, but there is a noticeable diference in checking a drive after a system crash when running Windows NT or 2000 and Linux running on the ReiserFS.
On some large drives it can take NT quite some time to perform that task.
And I wonder which corporations that make laptops (IBM, Dell, etc) will make a product line with the new AMD cpu?
Dell will most definately not make a laptop, let alone a desktop with an AMD CPU. Dell has some sort of deal with Intel, or the company is ran by some insane people that believe in the one vendor fallacy.
The type of benchmarking I would go for would include at least a six month or more testing that included continual uptime as well as simple tests at how fast a few transactions can happen.
Anyone can make something go fast, but can they make it last? That is probably the most important question.
I mean who cares which one is slightly faster if the faster system is constantly rebooting. With the File System of Windows 2000 you are looking at quite a long reboot after a crash as it checks everything. Now, using a journaling file system with Linux will result in far quicker reboots, if needed at all.
Show me the uptime and speed test done over a 6 month period. Then we can have an inteligent conversation on the topic. Until then all the rest of this is rhetoric.
Gene Roddenberry did not assume that only humanoids could be inteligent. Of course all the aliens in The Original Series, TOS, were humanoid in appearance. This was due mostly to the costs of makeup than the idea that only humans could be inteligent. If one were too look at several TOS episodes one would be exposed to the idea of reptilian inteligent life by way of the Gorn. I might be mistaken here, but weren't the Tholians composed of minerals?
I am quite certain that if Gene Roddenberry had the money and the special effects wizards of today the Gorns would have appeared far more reptilian and may have been more crouched and had tails. Just look at the changes the Klingons took from TOS to the Star Trek Movies and The Next Generation, TNG.
In the Next generation, there was an episode that showed the idea of snake-like inteligent life that resembled hooded cobras. There was also an episode that showed a race that appeared almost like large inteligent trout in robes.
Slashdot Mirror
Recently I heard a NPR broadcast regarding some scientists that were able to create a roadmap based upon the known mutations that HIV has undergone. They used powerful computers and created a computer model of HIV they then had this model mutate forward. Later they compared their results with HIV from the period they mutated their model to.
Once they proved that they could determine what HIV would mutate into next they turned the computer model on a reverse course. They went back at least as far as the 50's. Then they took samples of virus fossils from hospitals in Africa.
They determined that these samples from some unknown disease in the 50's was indeed early HIV. It is possible that HIV existed for many years prior to that. They could only locate the samples as far back as the 50's.
I believe the show that I heard that on was the Todd Mundt show. It aired about 2 months ago.
You are quite correct that there is bound to be many insect-lik creatures roaming the galaxy in this planet or that. Of course that is very true on our planet. On another planet with a completly diferent evolutionary path anything is possible. Creatures with three legs and no real 'front' could be the main species. On another planet the inteligent species might have evolved out of practically anything we could think of.
Based upon my reading of bound collections of paper sequentially ordered with symbols representing sounds and ideas regarding Star Trek, specifically 'I am Spock' by Leonard Nimoy. The character of Spock was made more human as Gene believed that the viewers would not understand a completely alien creaure and there was the costs involved with the makeup at the time.
Of course the rest of this is simply conjecture as most of the inteligent and semi-inteligent species on this planet are bipedal mammals. Mountain Gorillas show some inteligence, Chimpanzees show inteligence and many of our fellow bipedal hairless ape neighbors also show some inteligence as well.
Of course some scientists recently performed some inteligence tests with Dolphins and have proven that they can recognize themselves in the mirror and will look at marks that have been added to their bodies. Something that was once thought only possible with the brains located in the skulls of apes and of course the hairless apes that we are.
As for the existense of insectoid inteligence I would have to put forth that it would be very unlikely. While many insects are 'social' creatures many of the them are in hive environs. For the most part the only insect in the hive that is supposed to have inteligence would be the queen and even that would be debatable.
Since this dicussion could go on for ages and the end result is impossible to determine as it is highly unlikely that we will be able to bring actual alien life into this conversation. I shall leave you with the above thoughts.
Gore did not invent the internet. What Gore did invent was the term Information Superhighway. He has been credited with being the first politician to use that term.
"That is all I have to say about that" - Tom Hanks as Forrest Gump
The only facts that I have presented are those that I have witnessed myself. It does indeed take longer for a Windows NT or 2000 machine to recover after a power loss when checking the filesystem than it takes a Linux system running on top of the ReiserFS. What I would like to see is real-world benchmarks that take half a year or more and involve more than simply, "How dang fast can we make this thing go Goober?" I am more concerned with long term spead and reliability. How fast is that Database server after it has been in operation for half a year? Even with regular maintenance there could be some slow down in performance over time. Once those tests are performed I would make my choice based upon that information. In the meantime I am forced to go with my own observations.
Okay, NTFS is Journaling. Have you ever taken a look at how long NTFS takes to check a drive? I do not have any numbers right in front of me, but there is a noticeable diference in checking a drive after a system crash when running Windows NT or 2000 and Linux running on the ReiserFS. On some large drives it can take NT quite some time to perform that task.
Dell will most definately not make a laptop, let alone a desktop with an AMD CPU. Dell has some sort of deal with Intel, or the company is ran by some insane people that believe in the one vendor fallacy.
The type of benchmarking I would go for would include at least a six month or more testing that included continual uptime as well as simple tests at how fast a few transactions can happen.
Anyone can make something go fast, but can they make it last? That is probably the most important question.
I mean who cares which one is slightly faster if the faster system is constantly rebooting. With the File System of Windows 2000 you are looking at quite a long reboot after a crash as it checks everything. Now, using a journaling file system with Linux will result in far quicker reboots, if needed at all.
Show me the uptime and speed test done over a 6 month period. Then we can have an inteligent conversation on the topic. Until then all the rest of this is rhetoric.
Gene Roddenberry did not assume that only humanoids could be inteligent. Of course all the aliens in The Original Series, TOS, were humanoid in appearance. This was due mostly to the costs of makeup than the idea that only humans could be inteligent. If one were too look at several TOS episodes one would be exposed to the idea of reptilian inteligent life by way of the Gorn. I might be mistaken here, but weren't the Tholians composed of minerals?
I am quite certain that if Gene Roddenberry had the money and the special effects wizards of today the Gorns would have appeared far more reptilian and may have been more crouched and had tails. Just look at the changes the Klingons took from TOS to the Star Trek Movies and The Next Generation, TNG.
In the Next generation, there was an episode that showed the idea of snake-like inteligent life that resembled hooded cobras. There was also an episode that showed a race that appeared almost like large inteligent trout in robes.