Guest guest Posted May 8, 2006 Report Share Posted May 8, 2006 > First author Dzung Nguyen and colleagues found that inhibitory signaling proteins called Siglecs, normally expressed on mammalian immune cells, are either totally absent or very poorly expressed in human T cells. Their data indicate that suppression of T cell Siglecs evolved about 100,000 to 200,000 years ago, leading to much more active T cell responses. Thats a bit odd. Its the timing thats odd, not the fact that humans have some unique immune traits. Because of epidemic diseases, you might expect the human immune response to have become more robust around the time when humans became far more social than the great apes, which form our genetic background. I dont think we did that until a few thousand years ago. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 9, 2006 Report Share Posted May 9, 2006 > Thats a bit odd. Its the timing thats odd, not the fact that humans > have some unique immune traits. Because of epidemic diseases, you > might > expect the human immune response to have become more robust around the > time when humans became far more social than the great apes, which > form > our genetic background. I dont think we did that until a few thousand > years ago. Gee, I would have thought we became more social more that a few thousand years ago. Depends on what you mean by " a few " I guess. - Kate Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Guest guest Posted May 9, 2006 Report Share Posted May 9, 2006 > Gee, I would have thought we became more social more that a few > thousand years ago. Depends on what you mean by " a few " I guess. > > - Kate I guess I mean the time when a big chunk of the human population started regularly being within 2 or 3 degrees of contact with a really big network of people (like over 100 or 200). I'm not versed on when that was or how certain one can be about it. But Sumer is usually cited as the first civilization, at ~4000 BC. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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