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The HIV virus evolves at a tremendous pace.
An AIDS patient can produce 1000 mutated viruses each second.
The mutations occur in the HIV genetic material, a strand of RNA
about 9000 nucleotides long.  We'll take a look at the molecular machinery
that replicates the viral RNA.

An HIV virus contains two copies of its RNA.

Comparing sizes, HIV RNA is twice as long as the RNA in a ribosome.

A ribosome is decorated with about 75 different proteins.

A strand of HIV RNA is covered by about 1000 copies of nucleocapsid protein
and smaller numbers of other proteins.

Nucleocapsid can refold RNA.
The two copies of viral RNA are connected by kissing hairpins.
Nucleocapsid reforms this tenuous 6 basepair interaction
into a longer double helix.

An HIV machine called reverse transcriptase builds a DNA copy of the RNA.
The copying starts at a small double helix where a human transfer RNA
pairs with the viral RNA.

The same machine cuts up and removes the template RNA.

It then adds a second strand of DNA to form a double helix.

Copying the RNA into DNA introduces about 5 errors.

The copying jumps between the two parent RNA molecules about 3 times 
mixing the parent RNA genes.

The two ends of the DNA are held together by an HIV molecule called integrase.

The DNA now travels into the cell nucleus through a nuclear pore
in order to become part of a human chromosome.

Integrase cuts a human chromosome and inserts the viral DNA
which will be spooled and indistinguishable from human DNA.

Human molecular machines now produce RNA copies from the DNA in the chromosome.
To assure a full length copy, an HIV transcription activator binds to
the first fragment of RNA and recruits a human elongation factor that
signals the cell to continue copying.

RNA is normally cut and spliced into individual genes.
HIV can avoid this fate using its Rev protein to tether nuclear export
molecules which will escort the uncut RNA out of the nucleus.

New virus particles will form around these RNAs, bud from the cell,
and infect other cells.