We may be sucking in all sorts of viruses and we really don't know the full range of them. Maybe we've got flu virus inside of us. That's a possibility. Maybe we're part flu.
Carl ZimmerThe only kinds of ways we have to deal with viruses are old school, so vaccines for example are very effective, but the first vaccines were invented in the 1700's, so we're talking about technology that is over 200 years-old.
Carl ZimmerIt used to be thought that only a certain kind of virus could get into our genome and it's called a retrovirus and that's a virus that might be HIV for example.
Carl ZimmerI wouldn't be a very good hunter without these glasses. I'm not a very good hunter with these glasses, but I'd be even worse without them, so that would put a crimp in how many kids I could have, so all of these medical advances have at least in some parts of the world blunted natural selection.
Carl Zimmer