Viral Ancestry

The title might not make sense immediately, please bear with me...

The Matrix series may not have been as religious an experience for most of you as it was for me. A futuristic, apocalyptic, video-game like nightmare world were computers have taken over the world and harvest heat from human beings for power. Not to mention having the ability to fly, stop bullets, and take on any martial artist the world has to through at you. It's freakin' awesome, but I digress.

One of my favorite scenes in the series comes from the original film where the evil Agent Smith (picture right) has captured Morpheus, our heroic leader, and is giving him the typical villain monologue about why he wants to destroy humanity. The line he uses is classic:

"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 a natural 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 and 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."


Well as it turns out, it might be true (see I told you I would bring it around eventually). An amazing new form of viral research has arisen recently in which DNA researchers search for ancient viral DNA structures in the genomes of organisms alive today, including humans.
40 million years ago, a virus called the borna virus infected our ape-like ancestors. The genes from that virus have been passed down ever since and can now be found in the genomes of every human being on the planet. It doesn't stop there, to date over 100,000 elements of human DNA have been found to likely come from viruses.

Typically these viral remains do not affect us in any adverse way, or at least we know little enough about them that scientist aren't raising any serious concerns yet. In fact some viruses have been shown to help ward off other viral invasions. Syncytin, a protein produced by one virus is even essential for a placental tube, necessary for birth, to exist at all. It's not all good unfortunately. Not enough information exists currently on the interaction of retroviruses and human health. It has been linked by some experts to protein deficiencies as well as a number of mental illnesses such as schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.

Regardless of the effects, the questions these new findings bring up are exciting to think about. Are humans some kind of super virus? Are our superior brains all thanks to viral infections, bending our monkey ancestors to their evolutionary will? All of this coupled with a recent talk I hear on the TED website about the brains evolution makes me wonder.

As much as I would like to talk about what retroviruses are and how they effect us, I have more work-based work I need to be doing. Not to mention I am not versed in this discipline in any way shape or form. I can however drop a series of links at the end of this blog and claim that I know what I am doing. Enjoy!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retrovirus

http://www.microbiologybytes.com/virology/Retroviruses.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/12/science/12paleo.html?pagewanted=1&ref=science