[SunkenCiv]

"Maybe neither were in Africa when this was going on."

Heh... y'think?

"no molecular remnants of this ancient infection appear in the DNA of people, whose ancestors also inhabited Africa, or in the genes of apes, such as orangutans, from Asia"

Soon to be a GGG ping coming to a computer near you.

[dread78645]

> "Maybe neither were in Africa when this was going on."

"no molecular remnants of this ancient infection appear in the DNA of people, whose ancestors also inhabited Africa, or in the genes of apes, such as orangutans, from Asia"

Could be. The article mentions that macaques had the retroviral sequences, but didn't give details of whether they were Barbary (N. Africa) or the Japanese (Asian) Macaques.

If the 1.5 Mya time is correct, Homo would have had already branched off sufficiently.
On another hand, if it was introduced 4.0 Mya that makes for some interesting questions. Did Homo branch in spite of the virus, or because of it?

[SunkenCiv]

GGG managers are SunkenCiv, StayAt HomeMother & Ernest_at_the_Beach	join list or digest view topics view or post blog bookmark post a topic subscribe
Just updating the GGG info, not sending a general distribution. The Scars of Evolution: What Our Bodies Tell Us About Human Origins by Elaine Morgan "The most remarkable aspect of Todaro's discovery emerged when he examined Homo Sapiens for the 'baboon marker'. It was not there... Todaro drew one firm conclusion. 'The ancestors of man did not develop in a geographical area where they would have been in contact with the baboon. I would argue that the data we are presenting imply a non-African origin of man millions of years ago.'" and from FR: Infectious Evolution: Ancient Virus Hit Apes, Not Our Ancestors, In The Genes [4/02/2005] To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list.