Month: September 2022

NON-AUTONOMOUS. "Dependence on another organism for survival is not unique to viruses, and even some bacteria and fungi can’t go it solo." Same can be said for computer viruses. https://lnkd.in/dBXpMbs View in LinkedIn

TREE OF LIFE. "Darwin provided a great unifying theory for biology; its visual expression is the universal tree of life. The tree concept is challenged by the occurrence of horizontal gene transfer and...by the omission of viruses." https://lnkd.in/dB5sPBH View in LinkedIn

EXCLUSION. "If you look at a tree that shows all living organisms on it, you will not find viruses there. This is because viruses are completely dependent on another organism to live, and cannot survive without the other organism. Viruses cannot reproduce, or make more viruses, unless they are in, or on, another organism. But once they have access to the resources they need, viruses seem very much alive, as they reproduce and become part of the food chain." https://lnkd.in/e3zZDuE View in LinkedIn

VAGARIES OF OPINION. "When viruses were discovered, they were accepted as missing links between the inert world and living organisms. However, this idea was soon abandoned as information about their molecular parasitic nature accumulated." https://lnkd.in/dt9i8je View in LinkedIn

IN VOGUE. "Recently, the notion that viruses are living organisms that have had a role in the evolution of some essential features of cells has experienced a renaissance owing to the discovery of unusually large and complex viruses that possess typical cellular genes." https://lnkd.in/dt9i8je View in LinkedIn

NAY CAMP. "We contend that there is strong evidence against the notion that viruses are alive and represent ancient lineages of the tree of life." https://lnkd.in/dt9i8je View in LinkedIn

YAY CAMP. "The cell nucleus itself is of viral origin." https://lnkd.in/dHuVTgq View in LinkedIn

ANCIENT EVOLVING THINGS. "Viruses have their own, ancient evolutionary history, dating to the very origin of cellular life. For example, some viral-repair enzymes—which excise and resynthesize damaged DNA, mend oxygen radical damage, and so on— are unique to certain viruses and have existed almost unchanged probably for billions of years." https://lnkd.in/dHuVTgq View in LinkedIn

DRIVERS OF GENETIC INNOVATION. "The huge population of viruses, combined with their rapid rates of replication and mutation, makes them the world’s leading source of genetic innovation: they constantly “invent” new genes. And unique genes of viral origin may travel, finding their way into other organisms and contributing to evolutionary change." https://lnkd.in/dHuVTgq View in LinkedIn

RAPID EVOLUTION. "But viruses themselves also evolve. New viruses, such as the AIDS-causing HIV-1, may be the only biological entities that researchers can actually witness come into being, providing a real-time example of evolution in action." https://lnkd.in/dHuVTgq View in LinkedIn