> One researcher is resurrecting extinct strains of the virus from genes recovered from ancient skeletons, hoping to learn more about how today’s strains might evolve.

Because what could possibly go wrong?

This work is done in biosafety compliant conditions. The risk is far less than you imply. In any case these are ancient strains whose hosts outcompeted them evolutionarily.

Viruses evolve to be less deadly over time, so an old strain of something might actually be more dangerous.

What is the genetic motive for them to become less deadly over time?

Killing the host prevents it from spreading the virus.

The most successful viruses don't impact the host's health at all, like the virus whose leftover DNA allows mammals to give live birth.

> the virus whose leftover DNA allows mammals to give live birth

Wow, first time I hear about this. Do you have any links with additional info?

SARS & Ebola kills people fast. So, all the government has to do is quarantine the infected and they'll be dead in days. Problem over.

HIV kills super slowly. Technically it doesn't kill. As a result, it's successfully infected hundreds of millions.

If we agree that one chief goal of living things is propagation, HIV is very successful while the fast killing viruses aren't.

Eventually hiv is just going to be part of the human genome.

For those interested:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosafety_level