Infectious Evolution: Ancient Virus Hit Apes, Not Our Ancestors, In The Genes

The significant aspect of this story is unstated. Humans inherited the ability to exogenate viruses into our DNA, and code around them, from our old-world primate ancestors. The fact that one virus affects one species worse than another is not news. The exogenation ability is limited to rare individuals with cells capable of providing energy at the proper levels for their epigenes to recode without effect.

Humans take advantage of this ability by developing “leaky gut” via the zonulin intestinal enzyme, and thereby infecting humans. The process kills huge swaths of people when populations become dense. It inoculates future humans against specific viruses. And it introduces random changes into the gene pool.

This process represents the reason why humans split from our primate ancestors. It also answers the questions of why and how humans made such rapid evolutionary changes in only 2 million years.

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