Jump to content

A crazy question.


Peron

Recommended Posts

Yes, along with all aerobic eukaryotes (that's pretty much life as most people know it). Obviously, each of us has their own mitochondria, and there really is no way such a harmful mutation would be able to spread. You'd have to have a virus that could infect the cells and mitochondria inside them to change it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, along with all aerobic eukaryotes (that's pretty much life as most people know it). Obviously, each of us has their own mitochondria, and there really is no way such a harmful mutation would be able to spread. You'd have to have a virus that could infect the cells and mitochondria inside them to change it.

 

So, what about a kind of ERV, infects the mitochondria, then this ERV incision lays dormant until it is passed on to a future generation. Most of the human race is infected, then a few decades later, everyone is dead.

 

Is this even remotely possible?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

What if there are variants of your ERV so that it doesn't kill its host? Wouldn't it confer the variant an advantage over others? So host is the vector how the virus propagates, if their burst kills all of their host, they're doomed to extinction. Yet if they didn't affect their host to help their propagation (like most of the symptoms of sneezing, coughing.etc), they got weaker propagation capacity and would be overrided by other intraspecific competents. There hence always an ideal equilibrium position (ratio) between virulent forms and milder forms. Even in your presumed example, the affected species would not go extinct.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.