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331 points breve | 34 comments | | HN request time: 0.471s | source | bottom
1. mcculley ◴[] No.45030508[source]
I always wonder this and maybe people in the comments here know the answer: If humans had the technology to eliminate all viruses on Earth, what would be the outcome? Do viruses keep other bad things in check? Would there be bad consequences if we eliminated all viruses?
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2. ocfnash ◴[] No.45030523[source]
Most viruses are bacteriophages, so I imagine bacteria would run wild!
replies(1): >>45033713 #
3. lotsoweiners ◴[] No.45030534[source]
Population control.
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4. fritzo ◴[] No.45030621[source]
The world of viruses is wide and beyond our current understanding. 50 years ago one might have dreamily wondered whether "eliminating all bacteria" would improve the world. Now we know we'd all die quickly without bacteria (e.g. gut biome). I think we're about at that level of understanding today regarding viruses.
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5. Lalabadie ◴[] No.45031827[source]
Eliminate all viruses: Population issues in other organisms down to bacteria is my guess. We break a link in a significant food chain, basically.

Eliminate human-tropic viruses: We have to monitor for outbreaks when new viruses mutate and jump species to successfully infect humans. If there's zero mass immunity across the population at every outbreak, we're still in a high-risk situation.

6. Tagbert ◴[] No.45032446[source]
Viruses kill a lot of bacteria. We might trade viral infection for increased bacterial infections
7. djmips ◴[] No.45032740[source]
Viruses have had a lot to do with the evolution of life and specifically us, where perhaps our distant ancestors were bestowed with a system of transcribing short term memory into long term memory via the hijacked machinery from a virus. This is only one example that I could remember off the top of my head, there are surely many more. Would that matter going forward? I feel like we'd better be sure that we aren't causing more problems than we are solving.
8. olddustytrail ◴[] No.45032958{3}[source]
Not really. Races don't exist biologically. There are certainly traits within populations but that's a bit like my cousins tend to be fatter than my family. It's not something that can be accurately targeted.
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9. asdff ◴[] No.45033011[source]
Loss of genetic diversity overtime will happen as well as a different path of evolution. Much of what you see on earth today is the result of virus-host interactions shaping evolutionary outcomes. Viruses are capable of providing horizontal inheritance of genetic material.
10. asdff ◴[] No.45033104{4}[source]
You'd be surprised. There is quite a bit of polymorphism within the human species that is very much distinguishable per population. E.g. haplogroup analysis or microsatellite analysis is remarkably accurate in this regard due to a lack of interaction between far flung populations until quite recently in human history. Now, does this imply all the bullshit eugenicists and other racists tend to preach about with race? Hell no, social factors are responsible for most of that variance, but to suggest there would be no biomarker for "race" in its colloquial definition as proxy for population of origin is inaccurate.

This is also why there is a big focus now to seek out underrepresented populations in genetic analysis, because there may be population specific biomarkers that are relevant in disease that you miss if you limit yourself to the handful of widely sequenced homogeneous populations (e.g. there are Utah and Iceland datasets that are popular to use for this).

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11. lanstin ◴[] No.45033561{5}[source]
What there isn't is a small number of distinct subgroups that are more related to each other than to the other subgroups.
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12. asdff ◴[] No.45033648{6}[source]
There is, due to the way humans migrated and geographically isolated themselves over human history where founder effect, genetic drift, and evidence for introgression (both within our species and from hybridization with other species of hominids) is easily appreciated among populations even today.
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13. lmz ◴[] No.45033666{4}[source]
If there was ever a race targeting disease they will exist by definition. Those it inaccurately targets are just not pure-blooded enough.
14. zahlman ◴[] No.45033713[source]
Aren't bacteria generally much larger than viruses?
replies(1): >>45034081 #
15. djrj477dhsnv ◴[] No.45033908{6}[source]
Sure there are. An easy example is Australian aboriginals. They were geographically isolated for tens of thousands of years. Their subgroups are more related to each other than to other subgroups.
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16. karolinepauls ◴[] No.45034081{3}[source]
Phages don't devour bacteria, they get inside and hijack them, like viruses tend to do with cells.
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17. 0xDEAFBEAD ◴[] No.45034098[source]
I would be worried about:

* An increase in autoimmune diseases (related to the hygiene hypothesis).

* Decreased resistance to future viral pandemics, since the body wouldn't have practice since childhood in fighting viral disease.

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18. chasil ◴[] No.45034143[source]
We aren't the target of most viruses.

It could be chaotic, I think.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=SbvAaDN1bpE

Are we also eliminating transposons? We would not survive that.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transposable_element

19. ammon ◴[] No.45034265[source]
For one thing, viruses keep bacteria in check. Bacteria populations live in an equilibrium standoff with bacteriophages (viruses). The human gut contains more bacteriophage virions than bacterial cells. So eliminating all viruses could lead to bacteria overgrowth
20. throwaway81523 ◴[] No.45034562[source]
Viruses are part of other biological processes as well as keeping things in check. For example, there is a bunch of viral activity involved in human pregnancy. A quick web search found this:

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6177113/

21. anonymars ◴[] No.45034827[source]
On the other hand viral infections themselves can instigate autoimmunity. After all, your body now has to fight your own cells (in contrast to other foreign infection)
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22. 0xDEAFBEAD ◴[] No.45035342{3}[source]
Yep, hard to know for sure which way it would go.
23. lanstin ◴[] No.45035791{7}[source]
http://www.stat.yale.edu/~jtc5/papers/CommonAncestors/Nature...

Strong statistical signals but no sharp lines between groups - we as a species like travel and sex.

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24. melagonster ◴[] No.45036122{4}[source]
Sometimes when phages get enough copies inside bacteria. The host will explode and release all phages inside it.
25. UberFly ◴[] No.45036406{4}[source]
"Races don't exist biologically"

This being your first sentence doesn't warrant continued reading.

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26. darkwater ◴[] No.45036488{5}[source]
Not an expert but I don't think that still qualifies as biological differences in races. I mean, obviously we are all biological different and it seems obvious as well that if a group of people stays isolated enough it will develop and reinforce differences to other groups.

For example the Basque population has clear genetic differences to the rest of the Iberian and Westerner population [1] but that doesn't make them a different race.

Race is just a social construct, mostly based on visual traits.

[1] https://www.ibe.upf-csic.es/news/-/asset_publisher/PXTgqZXxl...

27. wildylion ◴[] No.45037075[source]
There's a hypothesis that a viral gene made mammalian placenta possible: [pubmed](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10693809/).

And there's not even the only one (there are other syncitins).

Disclaimer: I'm not a medical professional

28. anonymous_sorry ◴[] No.45037172{5}[source]
The historical conception of race doesn't translate simply to human genetics.

There is more genetic variation within a what we might call a race than between them. And it's interesting to note that the genetic diversity of Eurasian populations is in large part contained within the much greater diversity of Africa. In some sense we're all Africans. On top of that there has been a good amount of mixing, both historically and in the present day.

To think in terms of "races" might lead one to hold a mental model of impermeable boundaries between populations that in many cases were never present, and certainly aren't today. Geneticists tend to use the word "population" instead, since it doesn't connote any unhelpful assumptions about uniform or fixed phenotypes within a well-defined species subgroup.

Of course there are certain obvious environmental adaptations that have been selected for in different geographies/climates, as well random genetic drift between distant populations. Sometimes those difference might have medical relevance, and you can make statistical generalisations about the prevalence and distribution of genetic markers within any group you like. But for most medical and public policy applications it is likely most useful to focus on populations within an administrative area, and increasingly, individualised medicine.

29. aurizon ◴[] No.45037837{4}[source]
Humans are animals, adaptable animals. We have seen how pigment faded when people moved out of Africa and the energy cost of melanin was saved as men lost melanin to allow Vitamin D internal synthesis, and as they went to Asia they regained melanin in the South-East and even changed to another pigment in China etc - might be dual pigments. Hot climates often had ample food = over-population and competition for food = war and internecine conflict for resources and people optimised for combat. As you went North food became seasonal and people starved at time = crops/storage = less fighting = Eskimos are non combative against people, but their enemy was the climate = they learned to combat that quite intelligently with tooth/bone/sinew - also animals are high calory food, but deficiencies can lead to 'rabbit starvation' can occur, but in Eskimos was abated by fat from seals etc. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/rabbit_starvation So we are like cats/dogs/hamsters and the same for birds = hundreds of chicken variants. We are just meat in varied shapes/minds I recall an SF book by Jack Vance called 'Dragon Masters' where there were 2 habitable planets, one with Earth men and one with smart lizards and every few thousand years they would pass nearby and the higher tech lizards with space ships would raid the 'Earth' for slaves/plunder and would also lose some lizards to Earth capture. In the long period between orbital intersections, each side would breed their captured slaves into combat beasts of varied types. The lizards bred variants from massive Gorilla types to medium and smaller warrior variants, much like we bred cats/etc. The lizards also bred Juggers, Fiend, Blue Horror, and Murderers - all optimised for combat role against the other race. Vance created many highly creative novels, many with race variants as well as species on various planets. Often they had devolved from fallen interplanetary societies, near savagery, in a complex web of interspecies trade/conflict after the ancient fall when space travel was lost. SF in those days differed a lot from now. Even so, I found Vance's novels fascinating as a teenager. He is long gone, but not forgotten but his novels live on as e-books/audio books and are worth reading.
30. zahlman ◴[] No.45043147{4}[source]
Seems strange to call them that, then; but such is English I suppose.
31. asdff ◴[] No.45047508{8}[source]
Depends on the group. Oldie but goodie (1). Salient quote: "The Mormon gene frequencies are similar to those of their northern European ancestors. This is explained by the large founding size of the Mormon population and high rates of gene flow. In contrast, the religious isolates (Amish, Hutterites, and Mennonites) show marked divergence from their ancestral populations and each other, due to isolation and random genetic drift. "

1. https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC1684477/

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32. lanstin ◴[] No.45066229{7}[source]
That is one relatively isolated group. The existence of small isolated groups does not mean the whole species has a small number of distinct subgroups. The smallness here is intended to apply to the number of groups, with the size of the groups being correspondingly large.
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33. lanstin ◴[] No.45066260{9}[source]
As above, a few relatively isolated groups has no bearing on the truth of the proposition that all members fall into a small number of distinct groups with large numbers of members.

If you map out the reproductive connections betweeen these various small groups, they all connect quickly in terms of evolution.

34. djrj477dhsnv ◴[] No.45081286{8}[source]
The boundaries between groups may be blurred, but surely a person whose ancestors lived in location A for the last 10 thousand years will be genetically more similar om average to other people from that location than to people in location B on the other side of the planet.