HIV ground zero pinpointed
Two recent stories in the media got me a-thinkin’.
The first was about the origin of the virus that causes AIDS; the authors of a recent study think that it originated in wild apes in Cameroon before spreading in humans across Africa, and then worldwide. The common explanation of how the virus made the jump from apes to humans is bushmeat. Hunters caught a variant of simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) from the infected blood of chimpanzees they were planning on eating.
This sounded reasonable enough, and I gave it no further thought, until I read another article about a new report suggests that interbreeding between humans and chimpanzees happened a lot more recently than was previously thought.
…uh like about 30 years ago. It must get pretty lonely out there in the jungle.
I wonder if the hunters’ wives ever solved the mystery of why their husbands were always so excited about going hunting, but would hardly ever return with food.
The best part about these stories is that it gives me a chance to re-use this picture:
![[del.icio.us]](http://images.del.icio.us/static/img/delicious.small.gif){kind=small}