A millennium and a half after the fall of their empire, ancient Romans might still be wreaking havoc on the European continent.

On average, Northern Europeans are more resistant to HIV infection and take longer to develop AIDS than Southern Europeans, and French researcher Eric Faure thinks that represents the legacy of the Roman Empire, strangely enough. There’s a gene variant in question, called CCR5-Delta32, which produces proteins that the HIV virus has trouble attaching to. But while in some areas of Northern Europe 15 percent of people carry this gene variant, only 4 percent of Greeks have it. In fact, if you look at the distribution of places where few people carry the gene, Faure says, the map looks suspiciously like that of the extent of Roman rule.

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While the latest trend is apparently rubbing your muscles with Preparation H to achieve a ripply Schwarzenegger effect, one topical substance that might be far more useful for men is estrogen. Researchers at the University of Melbourne are saying that men could considerably reduce their risk of contracting HIV by applying estrogen cream to their penises at least once a week.

The reason it works, according to U. Melbourne professor Roger Short, is that the estrogen can dramatically thicken the layer of keratin, the protein that’s a key ingredient in hair and nails, covering the skin of the penis. Because of its toughness and insolubility, the keratin layer would presumably provide a natural defense against the virus.

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