Posted on 03/10/2005 3:11:16 PM PST by Pyro7480
A mutation called delta-32 in the cellular receptor dubbed CCR5 protects against HIV infection, and is found more often in Europeans than other populations.What do you want to bet this will be used as fodder for the "Whitey invented AIDS to kill the black man" crowd?
Even during the worst plagues there were always those who were immune. Those immune lived life like there was no tomorrow. They must have felt imortal.
Evolution in action bump....
There was a pretty detailed documentary on this subject that was aired not too long ago. It was a very involved study to make this discovery. It is odd that more hasn't been made of it.
Whoa, that is really bizarre.
Another example of scientific ignorance from Reuters. Shocking, but consonant with their political ignorance.
I am skeptical. Plague continued to be endemic and intermittently epidemic in China and India for most of the 20th century. Why would Europeans have developed the highest degree of resistance? Our knowledge of the medieval plagues in Europe compared to other areas of the old world is probably more related to documentation than to prevalence.
It could have been worded better. The frequency of the mutation rose because people without it died.
There is a flip side to that notion: ancestral exposure to disease had more to do with the rise of the African slave trade than did any innate sense of superiority to, or disdain for, black people. This ancestral exposure led to resistance to Malaria, the bane of American coastal plantations. Possessing workers that were immune to the disease was a great boon to indigo and rice planters. This genetic mutation is also responsible for Sickle Cell disease, though.
Of course, if it weren't for the increasing difficulty of acquiring indentured servants from Great Britain in the late 1600s, the much-more-costly African trade would never have been pursued to such degree in the first place.
When you consider the resistance that other genetic variations provide such as Tay-Sachs (resistance to tuberculosis) and sickle cell anemia (resistance to malaria), it makes sense that another variation could have become more common under the pressure of a plague.
There was a documentary concerning this on the History Channel last year.
That's the answer! A hardware-based firewall to block those ports.
"A mutation called delta-32 in the cellular receptor dubbed CCR5 protects against HIV infection, and is found more often in Europeans than other populations."
God will be called "RACIST!!" by the ACLU and GLAAD any day now.
There are a number of different modes of malaria resistance...most originate from SE Asia.
There is no such religion as Evolution. Only true believers.
I think this qualifies.
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