Gene Study Finds a Cannibalistic Past for Most Humans
It turns out that most of the human population of Earth have a protective gene signature from disease caused by prions, such as Mad Cow Disease. (This may explain why only 134 out of the English population of 50 million have been infected with the prion-driven killer.) This is good news for our health, but it tells of a dark past for almost our entire planet.
The team of researchers in London, discoverers of the phenomenon, have concluded that the prevalence of this genetic signature in modern humans is due to a long and widespread cannibalistic past.
The only reason we would have such a widespread built-in genetic protection from such forms of disease would be mass consumption of human flesh. You see, prion-driven disease is extremely rare under any other circumstances. You can get it from eating infected meat of another species (like a cow) but it’s a rare form that is able to pass the species barrier. So rare that infected meat of another species would be hard pressed to explain the widespread genetic protection that we have.
Deep in the recesses of the human heart, lurking guiltily beneath the threshold of consciousness, there may lie a depraved craving — for the forbidden taste of human flesh. The basis for this morbid accusation, made by a team of researchers in London, is a genetic signature, found almost worldwide, that points to a long history of cannibalism.
The signature is one that protects the bearer from infection by prions, proteins that can be transmitted in infected meat and attack the nerve cells of the brain. Prions can be acquired from eating infected animals, as in the case of the mad cow disease that in 1996 spread to people in England, but they spread even more easily through eating infected humans.
This fact is known from study of the Fore, a tribe in the eastern highlands of Papua New Guinea that started to practice ritual cannibalism at the end of the 19th century. Dr. D. Carleton Gajdusek, who later received a Nobel Prize for his work, noticed that the Fore were being devastated by a neurodegenerative disease known as kuru. He linked it with their practice of eating the brains of their dead in mortuary feasts. When the feasts were banned by Australian authorities in the mid-1950’s, the incidence of kuru declined, and no cases have appeared in anyone born after that time.
So be glad your great-great-great-great-great uncle liked the way his neighbors tasted because it’s made you a much heartier organism.
Gene Study Finds Cannibal Pattern - NY Times
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