Are viruses our oldest ancestors?

Are viruses our oldest ancestors?

Humans have a skewed view of viruses because we only notice them if they cause disease. In reality, however, viruses are much more than pathogens. HIV and influenza cause frightening health threats, but 1019 HIV particles worldwide are basically nothing compared to 1033 total number of viruses on our planet. Viruses are present in every species and every ecological niche, and affect every organ...

What did our ancestors eat?

Over the millennia various hominoids and hominids have subsisted on very different dietaries, depending on climate, hunting proficiency, food-processing technology, and available foods. The Australopithecines were not browsers and fruit-eaters with very high intakes of vitamin C; rather they were scavengers of kills made by other animals. The hominids who followed did include some cold-climate ...

Paleolithic nutrition : what did our ancestors eat ?

Capturing climate variability during our ancestors' earliest days.

C limate’s role in shaping the environmental and evolutionary history of our earliest ancestors remains an actively debated topic. In PNAS, Magill et al. (1, 2) present records of terrestrial habitat and hydroclimate variation and pacing from Olduvai Gorge sediments during a key interval of our ancestors’ divergence and dispersal approximately 2.0 Ma. Although there is general consensus that ec...

Transmission of viruses via our microbiomes

BACKGROUND Bacteria inhabiting the human body have important roles in a number of physiological processes and are known to be shared amongst genetically-related individuals. Far less is known about viruses inhabiting the human body, but their ecology suggests they may be shared between close contacts. RESULTS Here, we report the ecology of viruses in the guts and mouths of a cohort and demons...