A legacy of the Roman Empire
Posted on 09/04/2008 10:56:55 PM PDT by SunkenCiv
The gene in question codes for a protein receptor called CCR5. The HIV virus binds to this receptor before entering cells. One gene variant, called CCR5-Delta32, has 32 DNA base pairs missing and produces a receptor that HIV cannot bind to, which prevents the virus from entering the cells. People with this variant have some resistance to HIV infection and also take longer to develop AIDS.
Generally, only people in Europe and western Asia carry the variant, and it becomes less and less frequent as you move south. For example, more than 15 per cent of people in some areas of northern Europe carry CCR5-Delta32, compared with fewer than 4 per cent of Greeks (see map). It is not clear why this is so, since the HIV pandemic -- which began in the early 1980s -- is too recent to have influenced the distribution of the variant.
However, the changing frequency of the variant reflects the changing boundary of the Roman Empire from 500 BC to AD 500, says Eric Faure at the University of Provence in Marseille, France.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
A legacy of the Roman Empire
I would have figured the Greeks for this, not the Romans...
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Now *here's* someone who knows how to make a publicity stunt (IMHO). |
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/rimshot!
(uh, so to speak)
Too many pubic wars with Carthage?
Haven’t you ever heard of Elagabalus, AKA Heliogabalus Rome’s gayest emperor?
He’s famous for saying of one of them, as the Praetorian Guard was marching away all of his male couriers to be executed in the arena, “Can you not spare me this one man?”. They didn’t. Gotta love Roman pragmatism.
(Source Dio Cassius.)
In fact, homosexual acts were accepted among the Romans too. There was a saying about Julius Caesar that went something like this: “To every wife he was a husband, to every husband a wife.”
I’ve heard this before but the explanation had nothing to do with he Romans. The plague also attacks white blood cells. In the area hardest hit by the plague those without this mutation died off. The survivors offspring have a higher incidence of the mutation about 15%. areas that were not as hard hit by the plague Asia an Africa have a lower incidence. This is the first time I’ve heard that Asians are also at around 15%.
I didn’t know the Romans conquered San Francrisco.
Correct. The plague also uses the same pathway, and the Delta-32 mutation confers immunity to it. (if you have two copies, one from each parent).
As I understand it, Romans didn’t consider the “pitcher” homosexual, only the “catcher”. That’s why the barb in the saying about Caesar used by his enemies was that he was the catcher. Started when he spent time as a young man at the court of King Mithridates.
At his triumph, after the Gallic campaign, the legionnaries preceding him in the parade sang a ditty warning all the Roman men to lock up their wives and daughters because Caesar was in town.
Thanks!
LOL!
Hell, Hadrian was an out and out flamer. Built a city and named for his boyfriend who drowned. But nobody refers to an unnatural act of intercourse as “going Roman”.
True but Hadrianus never had his own male harum as near as I can tell.
Besides, sexual practices aside Hadrian was at least competent.
This little bit at the bottom of the article just irritates me to no end.
Let’s be serious in a science magazine shall we.
AIDS is no doubt a serious problem. But I do not think it rises to the level of the medieval plagues or the great flue pandemic of the 1918-19.
Let us also remember that AIDS has a very important behavioral component that if one alters the risky behavior makes the disease nearly impossible to transmit.
Sorry if I have gone off on a tangent but having this kind of blatant extremist social propaganda on a Science website sets me off.
I am a bit of a purist when it comes to separating science and social activism.
“This is the first time I’ve heard that Asians are also at around 15%.”
Actually, if the black death allowed people with this mutation to survive, then it would make sense that it exists in Asia, as the plague originally entered the Mediterranian ports from the East, and then moved west and north. Public TV had an interesting show on this a while ago.
Yes, that is my understanding too. The penetrator was thought masculine, the penetratee feminine, and therefore inferior.
It says the farther south you go, the less resistant the folk are.
This was obviously the “root cause” behind the need to do the delenda est on ol’ Carthage.
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