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To: dread78645
Keep reading :-) If the subsequent insertions are truly not orthologs, and "few if any" are, it is still problematic that gorillas and chimps were subject to later re-insertion but humans were not (resistance/susceptibility hypothesis) despite their overlap during the Miocene era. My mind is open and I patiently await the results of further research.
453 posted on 12/13/2005 12:00:55 AM PST by so_real ("The Congress of the United States recommends and approves the Holy Bible for use in all schools.")
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To: so_real
Keep reading :-)

I did -- and I read the original paper:
Lineage-Specific Expansions of Retroviral Insertions within the Genomes of African Great Apes but Not Humans and Orangutans

If the subsequent insertions are truly not orthologs, and "few if any" are, it is still problematic that gorillas and chimps were subject to later re-insertion but humans were not (resistance/susceptibility hypothesis) despite their overlap during the Miocene era.

Resistance/susceptibility is one possibility mentioned in the article, but ScienceDaily failed to mention a few of the others.
First is habitat difference, an epidemic in heavily forested areas but not pandemic onto the lowlands and savanna where humans found their niche.
Second is that PtERV1 sharply reduced survivability of human fetus/children, and the lower fecundity of those with the insertions would have been overwhelmed by the populations without.
Third is an Out-And-Back-to-Africa scenario. An uninfected population (from Asia) returned to Africa after the virus ran its course and subsumed the remaining hominids.

My mind is open and I patiently await the results of further research.

Very commendable.

465 posted on 12/13/2005 2:12:49 AM PST by dread78645 (Sorry Mr. Franklin, We couldn't keep it.)
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