In the world of the shadowrun pen and paper RPG a Virus trasforms mankind and the next generations mutates during puperty into Orks, Trolls or Elves.
I just read that there is evidence that about 20.000 years ago a Corona epedemic already struck this world. Well, the eastern part of this planet.
Viruses somehow interact with the proteins our body is made of and that ancient epedemic left some trace in human DNA.
So, did that epedemic back than create another human?
The numbers don't match up realy. We are homo sapiens and before us there was the Homo Neandertalensis. We coexisted for some time.
The oldest finds of modern Homo sapiens skeletons are about 200.000 years old and were discovered in Africa, while in Southwest Asia 100.000 and elsewere 60.000 to 40.000 years ago. The Neandertalensis was destinct about 40.000 years ago Dr. Google taught me.
We were created by mutations, too. That's the way biologic organisms adopt to changing environments. They learn. Our parents, the Neandertalensis, was ... different. Most likely less intelligent throughout the whole spectrum of intelligence.
We can destinguish us from our ancient parents easily, because we have a very different skeleton. I wonder if modern science can based on ancient skeletons check if there are DNA differences, really. DNA is called in the net "a fragile molecule that decays over time" and I am in no position to judge how much of scientific work is actually just pure speculation.
One thing is for sure, so. There is no brain to be found that old.
I am also quite sure that changes of the brain leading to more intelligence are of major importance to enable us to create better social structures and developing new technologies from the wheel meeting an axis to modern super computers that do more than running massive online games, while our skeleton structure might be not that important for the overall progress of our species.
This epedemic will have an impact on us as humans. May be not genetecally but unfortuntally, other parallels of major epedemics match. Those that created major violant conflicts in our society.
Hopefully, this time we will fix the problems of our system and prepare for the next Virus striking. Hopefully...
