Category: Uncategorized

"MIMIVIRUS has the largest known viral genome (1.18 megabase-pairs) and encodes an unprecedented number of components of the transcriptional, translational and replication machinery, many of which have not previously been identified in viruses." https://lnkd.in/e9h9zTt View in LinkedIn

RESURRECTED VIRUS. "It's 30,000 years old and still ticking: A giant virus recently discovered deep in the Siberian permafrost reveals that huge ancient viruses are much more diverse than scientists had ever known." https://lnkd.in/dEzBSEW View in LinkedIn

"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." We still have not remedied the oversight. https://lnkd.in/e6G-N4S View in LinkedIn

RECONSTRUCTED POLIO VIRUS. "Five years ago, as if to prove that point, researchers from the State University of New York at Stony Brook “built” a polio virus, using widely available information and DNA they bought through the mail. To test their “polio recipe,” they injected the virus into mice. The animals first became paralyzed and then died...“The reason we did it was to prove that it can be done." https://lnkd.in/e--W3GC View in LinkedIn

MIMIVIRUSES. "The issue of life without cellular structure came again to the fore with the 2003 discovery that the large and complex Mimivirus can synthesize proteins. This discovery suggests the possibility that some viruses may have evolved from earlier forms that could produce proteins independent of a host cell." Very confounding. https://lnkd.in/e7AX8A4 View in LinkedIn

SYNTHETIC VIRUSES. "Any viruses can be synthesized de novo ("from scratch") and the first synthetic virus was created in 2002. Although somewhat of a misconception, it is not the actual virus that is synthesized, but rather its DNA genome (in case of a DNA virus), or a cDNA copy of its genome (in case of RNA viruses)." https://lnkd.in/eF3wTsF View in LinkedIn

MOLECULAR COMPLEXITY. "Behavior is an integral feature of life. Behavior is manifest when a choice is possible, and a living entity responds to its environment in one of multiple possible ways." https://lnkd.in/ddnX_69 View in LinkedIn

PHAGE VIRUSES. "Bacteriophages are especially mosaic: the genome of any phage species appears to be a composite of numerous individual modules. These modules may be found in other phage species in different arrangements." https://lnkd.in/dFSG2cu View in LinkedIn

BACTERIOPHAGES are viruses that prey on bacteria."Given that phages are relatively specific, are capable of rapid adaptation, and are often obligate killers of their host cells, they can impose strong selection on bacterial populations and shape microbial communities." https://lnkd.in/dPdrQyr View in LinkedIn

MODULAR HYPOTHESIS. "According to the modular hypothesis, phages do not show vertical evolution in the Darwinian sense and it makes no sense to draw an evolutionary tree for phages." (Bacteriophages or phages are viruses that prey on bacteria). https://lnkd.in/e6G-N4S View in LinkedIn