Humans are part virus. I mean this literally.

We are placental mammals because of viruses. Also there was a 15 million-year pandemic!

Dear friend-

First some long-anticipated news from my end. I am super-excited to announce that COVID-19: Separating Fact from Fiction is now published and available globally on Amazon.in in India and on Amazon.com elsewhere. It’s my first book and I’ve poured a lot of time and effort into it. I hope you will shower the support and encouragement that you’ve given my newsletter and to me on Twitter. :-)

You can get the Kindle version on Amazon globally here.

You can get the book in India here.

Viruses continue to emerge.

There are aspects of our society now that are going to precipitate the emergence of more pandemics and viruses. Did you know that around two new RNA viruses emerge (on average) in human populations each year from other animals?

What can we learn from this spillover threat and how can we be prepared next time? I had a long chat with Nitin Sreedhar of Mint Lounge covering this topic. I also talked about how and why I wrote COVID-19: Separating Fact from Fiction. You will find the entire discussion here.

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We are part virus.

“If Charles Darwin reappeared today, he might be surprised to learn that humans are descended from viruses as well as from apes.”

— Robin Weiss

Did you know that humans are genetically part-virus too? I mean this literally, not metaphorically.

Viruses have been around for billions of years. Over 8% of our genetic material comes from viruses. And some of the genes we've gotten from virus infections are absolutely essential to us now. It's a fact I've elaborated on in my new book. In a nutshell, here’s what I mean.

SARS-CoV-2 is a coronavirus. There are other RNA viruses called retroviruses (like HIV) that are a bit different. Their RNA is converted into DNA during infection after which it integrates into the chromosome of the human host cell. This has been happening for millions of years. Retroviruses infect all kinds of animals such as fish, amphibians, reptiles, birds, and yes, mammals too.

Now, if the virus happens to infect certain cells that get passed on, then its DNA becomes something called an endogenous retrovirus. It becomes a "permanent" part of the host cell's genome. We don’t always know what effect these viral genetic insertions have, but there are some cases where we’ve figured out their remarkable contributions to life.

One of the most mind-blowing facts is that humans might owe our ability to be born live as placental mammals to a viral gene that we got from a retroviral infection millions of years ago.

Without viruses, 'humans' might be hatching from eggs.

Placentas aren't only found in mammals. There are actually certain lizards that have them too. There's a protein called syncytin which is needed to create a placenta. It came into our ancestors from an infection by a virus millions of years ago.

Not just placental mammals, but some reptiles like the Mabuya lizard also have highly-developed placentas that resulted from viral infection.

Biology is mysterious, complicated, and wonderful. If you were born live (and did not hatch from an egg) be thankful to the virus that contributed that gene that made it possible.

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The 15-million year pandemic

Viruses are too tiny to leave fossils, so we have to rely on other methods to find out about past infections. Those other methods including looking into the genomes of living organisms (including inside us). Virus genetic sequences inside people are “molecular fossils”.

I'm going to share another crazy fact. Starting 33 million years ago there was a 15 million year (!) viral 'pandemic' that infected our ancestors. Traces of this 15-million year pandemic have been found in multiple mammalian lineages.

This is a wonderful video on the 15-million-year pandemic.

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COVID-19: A year into the pandemic

I chatted with Dr. Annurag Batra, Editor-in-Chief of Businessworld about what we have learned, where we are, and how the pandemic ends.

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“COVID-19: Separating Fact from Fiction” is now available globally.

Here’s the link on Amazon.com. Here’s the link to on Amazon’s Indian site.

Here’s an excerpt of the book in which I talk about how so many COVID-19 vaccines were developed so quickly (and why they’re not the same).

If you enjoy the book, please do leave me a review on Amazon or on Goodreads.

As always, if you find this newsletter interesting, please share it.

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