A Coronavirus Epidemic Hit 20,000 Years Ago, New Study Finds (nytimes.com) 56
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The New York Times: Researchers have found evidence that a coronavirus epidemic swept East Asia some 20,000 years ago and was devastating enough to leave an evolutionary imprint on the DNA of people alive today. The new study suggests that an ancient coronavirus plagued the region for many years, researchers say. The finding could have dire implications for the Covid-19 pandemic if it's not brought under control soon through vaccination. "It should make us worry," said David Enard, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona who led the study, which was published on Thursday in the journal Current Biology. "What is going on right now might be going on for generations and generations."
Over generations, viruses drive enormous amounts of change in the human genome. A mutation that protects against a viral infection may well mean the difference between life and death, and it will be passed down to offspring. A lifesaving mutation, for example, might allow people to chop apart a virus's proteins. But viruses can evolve, too. Their proteins can change shape to overcome a host's defenses. And those changes might spur the host to evolve even more counteroffensives, leading to more mutations. When a random new mutation happens to provide resistance to a virus, it can swiftly become more common from one generation to the next. And other versions of that gene, in turn, become rarer. So if one version of a gene dominates all others in large groups of people, scientists know that is most likely a signature of rapid evolution in the past.
In recent years, Dr. Enard and his colleagues have searched the human genome for these patterns of genetic variation in order to reconstruct the history of an array of viruses. When the pandemic struck, he wondered whether ancient coronaviruses had left a distinctive mark of their own. He and his colleagues compared the DNA of thousands of people across 26 different populations around the world, looking at a combination of genes known to be crucial for coronaviruses but not other kinds of pathogens. In East Asian populations, the scientists found that 42 of these genes had a dominant version. That was a strong signal that people in East Asia had adapted to an ancient coronavirus. But whatever happened in East Asia seemed to have been limited to that region. The scientists then tried to estimate how long ago East Asians had adapted to a coronavirus. They took advantage of the fact that once a dominant version of a gene starts being passed down through the generations, it can gain harmless random mutations. As more time passes, more of those mutations accumulate. Dr. Enard and his colleagues found that the 42 genes all had about the same number of mutations. That meant that they had all rapidly evolved at about the same time. "This is a signal we should absolutely not expect by chance," Dr. Enard said. They estimated that all of those genes evolved their antiviral mutations sometime between 20,000 and 25,000 years ago, most likely over the course of a few centuries. It's a surprising finding, since East Asians at the time were not living in dense communities but instead formed small bands of hunter-gatherers.
Over generations, viruses drive enormous amounts of change in the human genome. A mutation that protects against a viral infection may well mean the difference between life and death, and it will be passed down to offspring. A lifesaving mutation, for example, might allow people to chop apart a virus's proteins. But viruses can evolve, too. Their proteins can change shape to overcome a host's defenses. And those changes might spur the host to evolve even more counteroffensives, leading to more mutations. When a random new mutation happens to provide resistance to a virus, it can swiftly become more common from one generation to the next. And other versions of that gene, in turn, become rarer. So if one version of a gene dominates all others in large groups of people, scientists know that is most likely a signature of rapid evolution in the past.
In recent years, Dr. Enard and his colleagues have searched the human genome for these patterns of genetic variation in order to reconstruct the history of an array of viruses. When the pandemic struck, he wondered whether ancient coronaviruses had left a distinctive mark of their own. He and his colleagues compared the DNA of thousands of people across 26 different populations around the world, looking at a combination of genes known to be crucial for coronaviruses but not other kinds of pathogens. In East Asian populations, the scientists found that 42 of these genes had a dominant version. That was a strong signal that people in East Asia had adapted to an ancient coronavirus. But whatever happened in East Asia seemed to have been limited to that region. The scientists then tried to estimate how long ago East Asians had adapted to a coronavirus. They took advantage of the fact that once a dominant version of a gene starts being passed down through the generations, it can gain harmless random mutations. As more time passes, more of those mutations accumulate. Dr. Enard and his colleagues found that the 42 genes all had about the same number of mutations. That meant that they had all rapidly evolved at about the same time. "This is a signal we should absolutely not expect by chance," Dr. Enard said. They estimated that all of those genes evolved their antiviral mutations sometime between 20,000 and 25,000 years ago, most likely over the course of a few centuries. It's a surprising finding, since East Asians at the time were not living in dense communities but instead formed small bands of hunter-gatherers.
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You're off by 2k years. Bishop Ussher calculated a date in 4004 BC (Oct 23, to be exact.): https://www.irishtimes.com/new... [irishtimes.com]
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Yup....
Incredible (Score:5, Funny)
The technology to run a virus lab back then must have been incredible.
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In genetic roulette the house doesn't always win, and all it takes is one breeding pair to spread the winnings around.
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And they probably couldn't blame on cell phones.
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all of this (Score:2)
P.S. Caprica the prequelistic sequel was much better.
A virus, a Pandemic (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes people, there have been virii as long as there have been people. Much much longer in fact.
But instead of running around in circles like panicked Elmer Fudd's, we should laud the breathtaking pace with which we are discovering and treating viral infections. Seriously? an effective and safe vaccine in less than a year? And that knowledge can be applied to future vaccines? Hot Damn!
And just to be certain, that early coronavirus didn't stop us from doing this: https://www.worldometers.info/... [worldometers.info]
Well, okay, that last paragraph might be a bit bothersome - but it's the point.
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we should laud the breathtaking pace with which we are discovering and treating viral infections. Seriously? an effective and safe vaccine in less than a year? And that knowledge can be applied to future vaccines? Hot Damn!
It is amazing. Now if we could just get people to take it.
The simplest way is to keep throwing money at it. Pay people to get it. Greatly increase the quantity of vaccine-lottery payouts. Whatever it takes will be much cheaper than not doing it.
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Lace condoms with it. Teenagers will do the rest. :-p
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we should laud the breathtaking pace with which we are discovering and treating viral infections. Seriously? an effective and safe vaccine in less than a year? And that knowledge can be applied to future vaccines? Hot Damn!
It is amazing. Now if we could just get people to take it. The simplest way is to keep throwing money at it. Pay people to get it. Greatly increase the quantity of vaccine-lottery payouts. Whatever it takes will be much cheaper than not doing it.
Give people a free handgun. Those MAGAs will riot to get their shots.
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Problem is unlike a genetic change our solution has to be repeatedly taken as the virus evolves. Basically viral whack-a-mole.
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Problem is unlike a genetic change our solution has to be repeatedly taken as the virus evolves. Basically viral whack-a-mole.
Yes, That's the weird thing about viruses. Mutate mutate all over the place. It might mutate into something semi-deadly, like Covid 19. It might mutate into something completely benign, or it might become something really nasty like previous SARS outbreak.
What made Covid 19 so nasty was that even though the death rate wasn't all that high, it was so damn communicable that even with that lower percentage, more people died. SARS was a lot harder to transmit between people, so kinda died out.
Which is why
non-paywall article link (Score:5, Informative)
sort of like CCR5 delta-32, HIV resistance (Score:5, Interesting)
There's a mutation called CCR5 delta32, only present in a small portion of people, all of European origin (mostly northern and central/western), which confers great resistance to HIV. It is though to be a selective mutation in response to smallpox, though this is not certain.
Or less obscure - sickle cell against malaria (Score:4, Interesting)
The malaria parasite can't infect sickle shaped bloodcells (for some reason, don't know what) yet evolution being the blind watchmaker it is , this mutation as we all know has dire consequences for the people with it so the selection pressure for it to persist must have been immense.
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Sickle cell and malaria is a complicated story that we've only started to figure out recently: https://www.understandinganima... [understand...rch.org.uk]
Those damn, dirty chinese. (Score:2)
Re: Those damn, dirty chinese. (Score:1)
Enough of the scare mongering (Score:4, Insightful)
"It should make us worry,"
No, it shouldn't. Viruses have always plagued humanity and covid is not even close to being as dangerous as smallpox yet we eradicated that though vaccination. Perhaps covid being a coronavirus mutates more just like its relative the common cold, but guess what - vaccines can be modified plus it seems 99% of people have natural resistence anyway.
I'm really getting tired of the scaremongering from people who really should know better. Is there some axe grinding going on here?
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You're in for a nasty shock one day when you find out that you and everyone else is mortal and we're all going to die of something one day.
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You're in for a nasty shock one day when you find out that you and everyone else is mortal and we're all going to die of something one day.
I bet you still look both ways before crossing the street though.
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That costs nothing, changing a whole society and way of life is a tiny bit more involved. HTH.
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I'm really getting tired of the scaremongering from people who really should know better. Is there some axe grinding going on here?
Fear sells.
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Coronaviruses only cause about 20% of common cold infections, for the record. The rest are a collection of rhinoviruses, adenoviruses, RSV, parainfluenza, and ones that we don't identify.
What evidence do you have for your claim that 99% of people have natural resistance to any of these viruses?
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That fact that less than 1% died. Sorry if simple maths is beyond you.
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That's not what resistance means in a medical context. Also, about 2% of known cases died. (Slightly more than 2% worldwide, slightly less in the US.). Sorry that simple math, English and facts are beyond you.
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I don't care what it means in a medical context, 1% or less of people in the population have died from it depending on the country not your fatuous 2% , end of. Go do some fucking research.
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Not everyone in the population has caught COVID-19, so the fact that fewer than 1% of everyone died from it says almost nothing about how many people have resistance to it. (It puts an upper limit on the fraction with resistance, not a lower limit.)
A much smaller fraction of people have died of rabies or ebola than have died of COVID-19. Do you think that means more than 99% of people have resistance to those viruses?
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Its pretty much given that most of the world population has been exposed to it by now. You seem to be forgetting that at least 75% of people have no symptoms.
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Tell that to the unvaccinated people who continue to catch, and sometimes die of, Covid.
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We all die of something, you're not immortal. Hope that doesn't come as a surprise.
Covid only affects the old (Score:1)
Nature doesn't care if you live past the age of reproduction, if a virus comes and takes 10 years off the average lifespan it's unlikely we will quickly evolve protection against it.
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Nature doesn't care if you live past the age of reproduction, if a virus comes and takes 10 years off the average lifespan it's unlikely we will quickly evolve protection against it.
We have medical technology now. We don't need to play by natures rules.
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A small proportion (maybe 10%) of the planet's population have access to medical technology. The other 90% are incubating new variants to try to kill that 10%.
We can give that medical technology to as many people as we choose. It's not going to stay at 10%.
Making a new vaccine is still going to be quicker than evolving against it.
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Well, the two would amount to the same thing - cull the population that don't naturally develop immunity.
Re:Covid only affects the old (Score:5, Informative)
In a social animal like us, those old people help raise the next generation, allowing the younger to put more time in resource gathering, so there is some selection pressure to have old people as tribes with old people are more successful.
Is this an actual study? (Score:1)
LOL. A coronavirus. (Score:1)
Ugh, the red-haired caveman: (Score:2)
It will go away by itself.