Incredible Discoveries About Viruses and Their Connection to Human Intelligence

something like 3 years ago I made a video about viruses inside our DNA the idea that our genes contain a lot of viral DNA which integrated with us throughout billions of years of evolution and though we generally tend to think of viruses as pathogens or something that's dangerous or something that's deadly in reality that's not entirely true actually in most cases that's almost entirely not true the story here is a lot more complicated most viruses actually serve a real important purpose in a lot of different genetic functions inside complex cells and over billions of years they've become an integral and a very important part of a lot of different functions inside different cells and though we've known for a very long time that approximately 8 to maybe even 10% of DNA is essentially different viral components when it comes to understanding exactly what they do that part of science is still in its infancy and so hello in four person this is Anton to today we're going to discuss a few more studies in regards to viruses inside our DNA with the main focus being Evolution and development essentially viruses quite a lot of different viruses helped evolve us into who we are today and actually even right now support our systems making us who we are and so let's discuss the main details from studies you can find in the description and I guess let's start with one of the bigger studies with one of the biggest discoveries so first of all we know that during the evolution of various organisms even before we became humans and before our ancestors became vertebrates a lot of viruses continuously interacted or I guess infected a lot of different species out there and very often integrated into their DNA this is especially true of so-called retroviruses such as HIV that you see right here and by definition a retrovirus is a type of virus that's able to insert a DNA copy into its host cell and in most cases when the the cell gets infected this viral DNA is then actually considered to be its own sometimes the viral DNA remains inside without being touched and can then actually become part of DNA going down generations and remaining inside without being touched so in other words some of these viruses can actually stay inside for generations and generations and thus become part of the Genome of a certain organism and we know that a lot of ancient viruses infected a lot of different vertebrates hundreds of millions of years ago because we see the signs of these viruses inside our DNA and in the video you can find any description we've talked about how 8 to 10% of DNA in most vertebrates is actually viral in nature but it wasn't until recently that the researchers realized how crucial some of these viral infections actually were as always you can find all of these studies in the description below but one of the major discoveries is actually in regards to what's known as myin by itself myin is essentially a type of a fat or fatty material that usually surrounds nerve cells in order to insulate them but also in order to increase the rate of electrical impulses here's a rough schematic showing us how a lot of neurons inside our bodies are actually inside of most vertebrates sort of look like and this insulating layer is actually one of the reasons why eventually a lot of different vertebrates were able to evolve to become so big were then able to evolve relatively large nervous systems and eventually humongous brains like the ones we have and a few other animals a lot of different animals were able to evolve a very efficient way to transfer nervous signals or basically various electrical impulses but turns out that in order to create myin a very specific Gene sequence is required which resembles a lot of retroviruses or in other words genetic code that's responsible for myin seems to have come from an ancient retrovirus whose genes exist in various mammals amphibians fish but not invertebrates like for example octopuses and one of the reasons a lot of different vertebrates were able to achieve gigantic sizes like for example one of the reasons elephants can get so big is really because milin allowed various vertebrates to have very efficient electric signal communication making body size no longer an issue but surprisingly enough all of this was only discovered recently because previously we actually thought a lot of these genetic regions were so-called noncing regions or junk DNA but completely by accident the researchers behind a recent study discovered a gene they now refer to as retromin and in order to see if it actually is what it is they even conducted experiments where in certain species they would knock this Gene out to see what would happen and so here they learned that this unusual Gene which seems to be viral in nature is directly responsible for the exist of myelin when it was removed genetically the lab animals where it was removed were no longer able to produce myelin inside their nerve cells and thus had a very very slow nervous response and so by knocking down this unusual Gene retro myin they confirmed its viral nature and it very likely started approximately 360 million years ago during the so-called age of fishes it's actually the same age when the Jaws very likely evolved as well and so quite a lot of species mammals birds and even amphibians potentially have this Gene which dramatically improved electric signal communication inside complex bodies thus allowing various species to react faster to for example Predators or vice versa allow various species to catch prey much faster and that's because it increases signal strength without increasing the diameter of Nerf cells allowing neurons to be packed in a much smaller space but it also provides protection and and support likewise it also allows for various animals to suddenly have much longer limbs because then basically all of these signals can carry even if you have a really really long body but intriguingly these viruses very likely did not affect invertebrates such as for example octopuses and Squid and because of this these animals evolved something a little bit different here instead of packing cells and surrounding them with myin various types of invertebrates ended up evolving extremely wide nerve cells which are actually quite efficient at transferring signals but the problem is that you cannot have as many of them in the same volume of space and so technically squid and octopuses would never really have as many neurons as vertebrates unless they have an enormous body and that by itself becomes extremely inefficient in a lot of different ways and naturally our brains are super complex super Advanced brains are also a result of all of this as well there's no way we would have 80 billion neurons and have efficient communication if it wasn't for myelin and if it wasn't for this viral infection but even more intally when the researchers tried to analyze if this happened just once basically spreading to other organisms from some kind of a single infection or if this happened multiple times they actually discovered that this infection very likely happened multiple times throughout millions of years so this is something that affected many organisms just not all of them eventually causing some organis Ms to evolve complex brains and tremendously large bodies with very efficient electrical signals okay so viruses clearly helped us evolve intelligence and large bodies what else well it turns out that quite a lot more turns out that even placenta one of the most important features of being a mammal is very likely a result of a viral pathogen as well and this is possibly something that happened approximately 500 million years ago and so here gen from some kind of a retrovirus that very likely infected early organisms once again resulted in a strange protein known as MV L gag an unusual genetic sequence that results in a strange protein A protein that actually helps manage the embryo development minutes and hours after fertilization in other words as soon as the embryo is created at least one virus but potentially a lot more seems to create a bunch of proteins that start the process responsible for creating embryonic cells with a lot of these viruses even controlling how various stem cells differentiate and how they then become very specific types of cells in various types of animals but even more strangely the highest levels of this viral Gene that then creates this unusual protein was actually during the earliest phases of embryonic development literally suggesting that these viruses seem to guide early development in PR pretty much most animals especially animals using sexual reproduction and this was actually captured in a lot of these pictures you see right here with tiny viral particles visible in different colors which by itself is really mind-blowing these ancient viruses that are basically inside our DNA and have been there for millions of years seem to be directly responsible for forming life even from the first seconds after fertilization and naturally because of this discovery medical researchers already started to look at this in order to understand potential issues and potential problems with infertility or developmental issues in the first few days and so This research doesn't just tell us that viruses are crucial it can also lead to some medical breakthroughs but if this wasn't enough well viruses actually don't stop there either they also seem to support the embryo by basically suppressing the immune system in order to avoid embryo destruction and that's because during the process of fertilization half of the DNA is from a different organism I guess the father and so in order to prevent mother's body from destroying it the immune system has to be somehow shut down and turns out that something happens inside placenta that once again involves a bunch of viruses but here it does something really tricky it basically pretends to be under a constant viral attack explored more in the study right here and by doing this it prevents the immune system from destroying the fetus and it seems to do this by using this unusual genetic repeats known as Alo a kind of a double strander DNA that seems to be once again viral in origin that literally causes the placenta to start an immune response but because these are not real viruses but just viral leftovers they don't really do anything but because of this placenta acts as if it's always infected which actually ends up protecting the fetus during its development and here just a little bit more Anatomy to help you understand inside placenta the a layer is known as sinko tropho blast a very thin cover inside the uterus that forms a kind of a wall in order to protect the fetus and also serves as a kind of a border that both feeds the fetus and also protects it from Mother's immune system and turns out that the protein responsible for creating this unusual structure is known as sytin but this strange protein has very unusual DNA unusual in a sense that it seems to resemble HIV quite a lot and so once again this protein seems to have come from an ancient retro virus extremely similar to HIV and other retroviruses and so the fetal development seems to be entirely dependent on a lot of different ancient viruses inside our DNA but those are just some of the recent discoveries from just the last few years and are definitely not the last discoveries and probably not even the most mindblowing discoveries we're going to be making as I mentioned before or 8 to 10% of DNA seems to be viral in origin and none of it seems to be junk it all very likely has function but it will take a while to find out what function and so definitely subscribe if you'd like to learn more about future discoveries in regards to this somewhat intriguing topic but looks like in the last couple of years we've discovered that everything from early development to the development of large brains and large bodies all seems to be a result of ancient viral infections mostly by these retroviruses something that we didn't know about up until relatively recently but if you'd like to learn more about how viruses affect us or why they're important in a lot of other species check out some of the previous videos in the description but anyway once we learn something else I'll come back and talk more about this in some of the future videos thank you for watching subscribe share this with someone who learn about space and Sciences come back tomorrow to learn something else support the Chann on patreon by doing Channel membership or by buying the wonderful person t-shirt you can find in description stay wonderful I'll see you tomorrow and as always bye-bye [Music] [Music]

Channel: Anton Petrov

Views: 218,343

Keywords: halteria, chlorovirus, anton petrov, science, physics, astrophysics, astronomy, universe, whatdamath, what da math, technology, steven universe, space engine, universe sandbox 2, virus, viruses, does anything eat viruses, what eats viruses, eating viruses, consuming viruses, virus consumption, picozoa, single cell organism, choanozoa, organisms that eat viruses, food cycle, plankton, food chain, viral shunt, why don't viruses destroy everything, viral, viral infection

Id: DXlnRSCRBoQ

Length: 14min 46sec (886 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 24 2024