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Ancient virus found hibernating in the human genome–and it might wake up
- ChuckMcM 11y agoThis was a fun story, I found the paper impenetrable though :-) I am sure that somewhere a writing team has latched on to this idea as a "secret off switch" for humanity which was programmed into the genome by early aliens which would allow them to expose us to the "activator" and cause everyone to immediately get sick and die. Except our scientist/hero has discovered the plot and is in a race to using gene therapy techniques to counter-infect the population with a tailored virus which removes this DNA. The secret alien operatives on the planet get wind of this and immediately start trying to discredit our hero team as terrorists trying to infect humans with a genetically engineered plague. Culminating in a massive, but nominally clandistine, human vs alien battle which ends up saving the world by giving people a cold. Hell the story practically writes itself.