Study Links European Colonialism in Africa to HIV-AIDS Epidemic

[minionofmidas]

Uhm... you guys realize that these were arguably leap-of-faith assumptions twelve years ago when they were first brooched, but not now that virtually all the research since has corroborated them?

[minionofmidas]

The virus did jump over from chimps to humans, and mutated along the way. Which requires spreading a huge number of times very quickly just after getting the infection - don't press me on the specifics, I'm not a virologist; the standard chimp version is fairly harmless to humans (and also to chimps), and lots of bush hunters contract it at some point in their life.

Technically you can't rule out someone "sodomizing a chimp"... but of course the virus primarily lives in blood, not semen, and the infection risk from sex is far lower than from blood contact. As I thought was common knowledge by now. And hunters are in contact with their prey's blood all the time, so...