8 Percent of Human Genome Was Inserted By Virus, and May Cause Schizophrenia

LOL

"Im in yur genome, causing yur mentil ilness"

I highly suspect 1 out of 20 popsci readers actually follow internet memes far enough to recognize lolcats but hilarious nonetheless.

You guys are starting to sound like geekologie

Mom: Careful jimmy, you'll catch the stupid.
Jimmy: Yes mom.

So can I get that 8 percent removed then? Maybe replace it with superman genes... Hmmm could you make a virus that infected you with superman DNA?? I know, I just blew your mind!

"All your Genome are belong to us!"

"...the link between bornavirus DNA infection and schizophrenia remains poorly understood..."??????

I think what you meant to say was "the link between bornavirus DNA infection and schizophrenia remains strictly theoretical and unproven."

C'mon guys! I like and respect your publication. But it is named Popular SCIENCE, not PSEUDO-Science.

-ldw

Interesting research. The discovery that most ulcers were caused by the H. pylori bacteria instead of stress should teach us that unquestioned "common knowledge" is often wrong. Just like the ulcer treatments that came from the discovery of H. pylori, it would be a huge boon to discover that certain debilitating mental illnesses were caused by bacteria or viruses and could be treated.

@marcopolo haha! excellent.

Perhaps the virus infections have given us everything from the "adventure/risk" gene to the "conceptual untification" gene that makes humans want to perceive order in chaos.

The discovery that most ulcers were caused by the H. pylori bacteria instead of stress was followed by the discovery that most Americans have H. pylori while ulcers show up in those who have H. pylori and stress taught us that "common knowlege" taught us that observable connections might not tell the whole story but are nonethless relevant.

Ha, I agree with the people pointing out the argument about the link with schizophrenia is very weak…

But to the people joking about ‘don’t catch stupid’, I wanted to point out that most schizophrenics I’ve known have way above average intelligence. :) So, if a link between this viral DNA and schizophrenia are found we might all want to remember the big lesson of 20th century social ‘science’. Unintended Consequences. Conclusion: If you’re not hearing voices you might not want to muck around with DNA for your future offspring. You might be knocking points off their IQ / the virual DNA may have good effects too.

why not insert dna that will make you smarter...slore i also find the smarter people are the more likely well that their crazy...not to insult anyone as i'm probably crazy myself.
The problem with schitzophrenia happens when you confuse the voices to be real not when the voices start if their not working against you.

I would also look at the bigger picture.

Perhaps viruses are the anvil of God.

They may have played a key role in evolution, explained lost transitional stages.

Wide spread viral infections could have caused major changes in a population.

Don't you just love memes? They pop up everywhere. "I'm not dead yet"

Yet, I'm not sure how I feel about the concept that human evolution is now working through memes. Especially since the memes are created through an intelligent process... Well... in that case... maybe they are...

So they found new virus code when they included in the search viruses that no longer effect us. This implies that we are looking for viruses based on virus templates, thus if there are viruses that are no longer around, and I'm fairly certain there are, then probably more then 8% of our genome is viruses. And I would agree that much of it may have caused evolution and could definately have beneficial effects once it was assimilated.

It may have been that 6 thousand years ago, Adam and Eve caught a virus that made them "human"

The first rule of genetics is there is no good mutation. So why is natural selection and evolution based on good mutations? I don't have a problem with science based theories on the origins of life, but at least they should be scientific. Very interesting article though. I just wish so much of science didn't revolve around evolution and flawed science.

@dontbother, apparently you didn't understand my point. Now that it's known that H. Pylori is the cause of the majority of ulcers, we can treat them with antibiotics. It's much more effective than telling a patient to "take it easy" and hope they magically recover. The analogy, in cased you miss it, is that finding a viral or bacterial link to mental illnesses would be wonderful because it would open up new, and perhaps more successful, methods for treatment.

Your 15 minutes are up Mrs Smith, take two of these and cancel the rest of your sessions! The psychiatrist - ologists are going to love this! Way to go popsci, both of me approve!

JGV, your comments about there being no advantageous mutations is laughable and highly inaccurate. The whole basis for evolution is that some genetic mutations provide an advantage, perhaps you should try reading, well just about any proper scientific work on either genetics or biology or evolution to see the error in your ill-informed opinion.

However, your comment that "I wish that so much of science did not revolve around evolution and bad science" is possibly the stupidest and funniest comment I have ever read online. It is you who is committing "bad science" by blissfully talking nonsense about there being no advantageous mutations when all scientific evidence points to the contrary.

If you do want to believe in evolution then OK, but please try and comprehend that evolution (and the benefit of mutations) are accepted facts at the absolute core of modern science. Your belief that genetic mutations are never beneficial is not confirmed by any science that I have ever came across, and if that was all you understood from your "Science 101" class then I am afraid you need to take that class again.

I mean are we to believe you or every other scientist in the world? Try and read a few books or even google a few articles about evolution, biology or genetics before making utterly idiotic statements that have no basis in fact. Or if you would like to stick to your opinion then please try and persuade the entire scientific community that they are all wrong and you are right in your evidence-free hypothesis that there are no genetic mutations that confer an evolutionary advantage.

So good luck with disproving everyone form Darwin to Dawkins, and I look forward to seeing the amazing shift in science that will inevitably follow your stunning discovery.

It's so easy to see the negative effect of mutations- genetic diseases. But, if we were to have a positive mutation with the same degree of change on the organism... we might be branded saltationists.
Darn those hopeful monsters!

It would be scary to think that a virus can cause such illness. What if Mr. badperson gets the idea of spreading the virus in order to concur wherever he wants???

www.sirketarama.com

@wilfred:
You have nice enthusiasm in your argument, but it's still noncritical, because you gave no data/situations to prove your point. In other words it's an empty five paragraphs of banter. If you want to prove your point to him, find some data from a RELIABLE source, and link it.

Disclaimer: I didn't read all the comments before me, and I'm not too savvy in the biology dept., but...

Is it possible that instead of thinking,"viruses that INSERTED THEMSELVES into our DNA for replication...", that we somehow assimilated the viruses for their positive characteristics or as a part of a defense mechananism and got some "unintended consequences" like schizophrenia and other mental illnesses in the trade.

@neon_deathstar

Viruses multiply by inserting there genes into a host cell to make it a virus factory; it makes the virus inside itself until it explodes, and spreads the virus to other cells, but the cell is not always killed, there are a small few that survive, and this is where the gene thing comes from.

This is also how we are gene splicing things like plants, by engineering viruses to be non-hostile, and to deliver a segment of gene coding to the cells. Though I believe that this is very dangerous. Man makes mistakes, and when you mess up the genes of something it can end badly.

Perhaps the virus infections have given us everything from the "adventure/risk" gene to the "conceptual untification" gene that makes humans want to perceive order in chaos.
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Intéressant de recherche. La découverte que la plupart des ulcères ont été causés par la bactérie H. pylori au lieu de la souffrance devrait nous enseigner que incontestée «notoriété publique» est souvent erroné. Tout comme les traitements que l'ulcère est venu de la découverte de H. pylori, ce serait une véritable bénédiction pour découvrir que certaines maladies débilitantes mentale ont été causées par des bactéries ou des virus et pourraient être traités.

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@igot1forya
"and now we want them back!!!"

@wilfred, jvg
science means the art of knowing, doesn't it? therefore, is there really any such thing as bad science? science is our attempt to understand the universe around us. if knowledge obtained from analysis or experiment is invallid due to mistakes in the process, it is not true knowledge. it is corrupt.

@dream
to do that would require information and processes that either dont exist or are very new and little understood. after all, if you go and make copies of a paper, how much of the info in the paper gets irreversibly imprinted on the photocopier?

@monsey
no, you probably need at least some of that 8%.and if we knew what did what in dna, and could code it with minimal side effects of the changes you would want to take place, please see my @dream section to see why that would be exceedingly difficult.

01/08/10 at 3:07 pm
"I think what you meant to say was "the link between bornavirus DNA infection and schizophrenia remains strictly theoretical and unproven."

No theoretical and unproven would mean they they can't see the virus or don't know what the virus are, but they do, what they don't yet understand is how they interact with our own genes. For all we know that which makes us human could be just virus mutations and nothing else.

Now that would be an eye opening experience. We would have to call the virus our real daddy GOD.