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ORGANISMS AS COMPLEXES. "It is evident that organisms are anatomically, physiologically, developmentally, genetically, and immunologically multigenomic and multispecies complexes." https://lnkd.in/ddVyNR5 View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this fragment on biological individuality. It is clear that an increasing number of life scientists believe that individuality is a mirage. We are already painfully aware that a scorched-earth policy with antibiotics is a failed concept, and that calling a large and diverse group of microorganisms 'germs' is becoming, slowly, a thing of the past. Already, the microbiome project is illuminating new drugs, not made of molecules, but of living things. We are embarking on a new age. View in LinkedIn

PLANT PATHOGEN IMMUNITY. "In plants, endophytes, the diverse and widespread fungi that live out most of their life cycle in plant tissue, provide enhanced pathogen immunity to their host; they can also ward off herbivores, among other benefits. Thus, immune systems are created, in part, by microbial symbionts." https://lnkd.in/ddVyNR5 View in LinkedIn

LIFE-VIEW. "We are all lichens." (Fungal plus algae hybrid creatures). https://lnkd.in/ddVyNR5 View in LinkedIn

ANTIVIRAL SYSTEM. "This ability of symbionts to condition and promote the immune capacities of the holobiont is not exclusive to vertebrates. In several insect species, bacteria of the genus Wolbachia appear to play an important role in antiviral protection." https://lnkd.in/ddVyNR5 View in LinkedIn

NEWTHINK. "For animals, as well as plants, there have never been individuals." Contemplate this carefully. https://lnkd.in/ddVyNR5 View in LinkedIn

REVISED PHYLOGENY. "Viruses are, in all probability, polyphyletic in origin -- that is, several major groups of viruses arose by several different routes, independent of each other, at different times, and have separate evolutionary histories." Thus, it would be impossible to have a ' virus evolutionary tree'." Genomic data completely revises earlier virus phylogenies. A very big deal. https://lnkd.in/d_sQRmR View in LinkedIn

IMPRINTING HISTORY. "There are often violent disagreements as to assignments of organisms, however, which have often been resolved as much by force of personality as by use of quantifiable data." https://lnkd.in/d_sQRmR View in LinkedIn

CLASSIFICATION OBSESSION. "Biologists have a pronounced tendency to name, classify and order their organisms of interest: this compulsion has been dignified by calling it taxonomy or systematics, and has evolved into a science all of its own." https://lnkd.in/d_sQRmR View in LinkedIn

DNA AND RNA VIRUSES. "If a virus is a DNA virus, its genetic material then inserts itself into the host cell's DNA. If the virus is an RNA virus, it must first turn its RNA into DNA using the host cell's machinery before inserting into the host DNA. The viral genes are then copied many, many times, using the machinery the host cell would normally use to reproduce its own DNA." https://lnkd.in/dPy3Zu6 View in LinkedIn