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Re:How the placenta evolved from an ancient virus (2020) by ceejayoz on Sunday January 21, 2024 @09:32PM (#39085431)
That's not what the article asserts; you're complaining about a strawman.

It asserts that some virus genes made it into our genome, and that some of those were useful in the eventual evolution of the placenta.

That mechanism is well documented: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus

Re:How the placenta evolved from an ancient virus (2020) by blindriver on Monday January 22, 2024 @09:41PM (#39098919)
Going from infecting an organ to getting replicated via meiosis and being transmitted such that it fits neatly into our chromosomes is entirely different things and different pathways. It's impossible. Exogenous viruses affected organs is real and even intertwining in our DNA, like herpes. But the idea that it can create new organs or somehow get into our sperm and egg in order to self propagate into another organism that doesn't have those genes is ridiculous.
Re:How the placenta evolved from an ancient virus (2020) by ceejayoz on Monday January 22, 2024 @09:50PM (#39098992)
Again, you're arguing against something that wasn't asserted. The article doesn't say some virus infected a human and bam, placenta, next generation. It says some viral infections gave us individual proteins that wound up handy later.

> the idea that it can ... somehow get into our sperm and egg in order to self propagate into another organism... is ridiculous

Again, that's precisely what endrogenous retroviruses do. From my link:

"Rarely, retroviral integration may occur in a germline cell that goes on to develop into a viable organism. This organism will carry the inserted retroviral genome as an integral part of its own genome—an "endogenous" retrovirus (ERV) that may be inherited by its offspring as a novel allele. Many ERVs have persisted in the genome of their hosts for millions of years."