Carl Zimmer
Nov. 18th, 2009 11:44 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
guslToday I saw Carl Zimmer talk about the evolution of viruses, specifically how they cross the species barrier (between birds, pigs and humans). Although birds seem to be the (direct or indirect) source of all human viruses, and even though they harbor all the Hs from 1 to 16, it is pigs that seem to be good at promoting "viral sex", i.e. recombinations between different virus types. Apparently, industrial-scale pig-farming barns seem to be huge labs for viral creativity.
There is concern that the 60%-deadly H5N1 might evolve the ability to spread from human to human, but it still seems to be 13 mutations away from doing that. I found this number awfully precise, and upon questioning, he told me that these 13 genes are the ones that are always present when you look at the 'diff' between bird-virus and human-virus, i.e. right before and right after it migrates to humans. The "always", however, only refers to the great pandemics, of which there are 3... so I'm concerned about the statistical significance of this.
He showed us this awesome video from NPR (who knew they made videos!):
[Error: unknown template video]
QOTD: "The virus lives in the tropics year-round, and comes up North during our winter. If it's any consolation, they come here to die"
There is concern that the 60%-deadly H5N1 might evolve the ability to spread from human to human, but it still seems to be 13 mutations away from doing that. I found this number awfully precise, and upon questioning, he told me that these 13 genes are the ones that are always present when you look at the 'diff' between bird-virus and human-virus, i.e. right before and right after it migrates to humans. The "always", however, only refers to the great pandemics, of which there are 3... so I'm concerned about the statistical significance of this.
He showed us this awesome video from NPR (who knew they made videos!):
[Error: unknown template video]
QOTD: "The virus lives in the tropics year-round, and comes up North during our winter. If it's any consolation, they come here to die"