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A VIRAL WORLD. “The oceans are home to a staggering number of viruses, roughly 10(30), making them the most abundant organisms on the planet. Most of these viruses infect bacteria, which are also found in huge numbers” https://lnkd.in/dTnw2ET View in LinkedIn

FRAGMENT FROM NATURE considers this weekend the strange beasts called Polintons, and how these transitional beings fit into the shifting viral world, and how they were discovered. Naked DNA, living as infective transposons that can evolve, forms communities, and reproduces, as well as can transition into more complex viral forms, are truly creatures of the Grey Zone, living between worlds. View in LinkedIn

THE LARGEST. “Polintons are large (genomes of 15 to 20 kb, the largest among the eukaryotic transposons), self-replicating transposable elements that are integrated into the genomes of diverse unicellular and multicellular eukaryotes in highly variable numbers of copies.” https://lnkd.in/dyavu7e View in LinkedIn

POLINTONS IN PLAIN VIEW. “An equally spectacular discovery of metagenomics is the identification of a novel bacteriophage that is more abundant than any other phage in the human gut but has remained unnoticed until metagenome mining has become highly efficient.” https://lnkd.in/dyavu7e View in LinkedIn

ADVANCES. “These findings have substantially enriched the available collection of ssDNA virus genomes, but more importantly, have changed the existing picture of the evolution of this class of viruses.” https://lnkd.in/dyavu7e View in LinkedIn

“Controversial Philosopher Says Man And Machine Will Fuse Into One Being.” https://lnkd.in/dmvsubF View in LinkedIn

NEW SPECIES IDENTIFICATIONS. “Among the most notable ones is the identification of the class of chimeric single-stranded (ss) DNA viruses that combine genes from known families of positive-strand RNA viruses and ssDNA viruses.” https://lnkd.in/dyavu7e View in LinkedIn

NOT SO SPECIAL. Biologists have been stumped to adequately explain the origin of life, nor agree on a definition, and many have gone as far as to say that it is a unique event in the universe, nurtured by an extraordinary confluence of physical conditions unique to planet Earth. But there is a growing concern that mere assemblies of metal wires could grow to be an evolving, sentient, reproducing threat to mankind. There is abundant evidence that life can spring up and evolve quickly from innate sources. View in LinkedIn

MECHANO-PROGENY. "Human beings create machines to do things more quickly and more efficiently, but some are beginning to believe that our own inventions may one day become our own children. Are machines capable of being recognized as living beings?" https://lnkd.in/etiQ6T7 View in LinkedIn

A GROWING VOICE. "We should be more afraid of computers than we are." https://lnkd.in/dUuTG9Y View in LinkedIn