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THE NEXT SECTION deals with some extraordinary findings and insights in the viral world outlined in a second very important article, and is a bookend for the previous blockbuster. Really exciting stuff. View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this extensive citation of a very important article on biological dark matter and the new emerging biological paradigm. This viewpoint is far from mainstream because it takes time for new ideas to overcome resistance, to become accepted and to trickle into mainstream thinking. However, this is an extremely important start. https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

PARADIGM REVISION. “The unveiling of biological dark matter is allowing us to see, for the first time, the diversity of the entire biosphere and, to paraphrase Darwin, is providing a new view of life. Advancing and understanding that view will require major revisions to some of the most fundamental concepts and theories in biology.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

IMPORTANCE OF SCALE. “In biology, as in physics, macroscale-level properties (i.e., those of classical biology) do not apply at the level of the micro-scale (i.e., biological dark matter). The newly emerging biosphere of microbial dark matter cannot be made tractable to research or understood merely by extending the concepts and methods of eukaryotic macrobiology. By analogy, that would prove about as useful as attempting to understand quantum mechanics through the application of Newtonian mechanics to miniature billiard balls.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

EXTRATERRESTIAL. “Viruses can’t metabolize (break down) food to release energy (carry out respiration) or grow. The only thing that viruses can do is replicate (copy themselves), but to do that they need the help of a living cell.” Extreme outsourcing and streamlining. https://lnkd.in/eFcy85g View in LinkedIn

DEEPLY INTERCONNECTED. “Most importantly, we know that every individual of the multi-cellular eukaryote biosphere is completely covered and infused with prokaryotic life and that these associated microbiomes have significant effects on the function and fitness of their multi-cellular eukaryote hosts.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

BORDERLINE. “Viruses have no chemical processes of their own.” https://lnkd.in/eHNQAPJ View in LinkedIn

TWO WORLDS. “We now know that about half of the world’s biomass and by far the majority of its genetic biodiversity actually occur as prokaryotic microbial communities. We also know that the visible biosphere of multi-cellular eukaryote macrobiological life represents a highly derived and constrained subset of life on Earth.” https://standardsingenomics.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s40793-016-0180-8 View in LinkedIn

BIOLOGICAL WARFARE. “During the French-Indian War (1754–1767), Sir Jeffrey Amherst, the commander of the British forces in North America, suggested the deliberate use of smallpox to diminish the American Indian population hostile to the British.” https://lnkd.in/eQfnZZv View in LinkedIn

THE NEW BLACK DEATH. “By the seventeenth century [smallpox] had replaced the plague as Europe's most devastating and feared disease." Its effects were dramatic and, since it was not limited to any particular risk group or risk behaviors, it threatened virtually everyone. No one was safe from its scourges. In fact, before the practice of vaccination became common, "almost everyone eventually contracted the disease." It was common enough that a proverb in Jenner's time declared that "From smallpox and love but few remain free." https://lnkd.in/ettvWHm View in LinkedIn