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UNEXPECTED COMBINATIONS. "A single-celled bacterium is alive, but if you separate the macromolecules that combined to create the bacterium, these units are not alive. Based on our knowledge of macromolecules, we would not have been able to predict that they could combine to form a living organism, nor could we have predicted all of the characteristics of the resulting bacterium." https://lnkd.in/epkJVpt View in LinkedIn

PREDATORS. "Some viruses also exhibit predatory behavior. For instance, the DenZuk virus will seek out and overwrite instances of the Brain virus if both are present on the same system." https://lnkd.in/eCG7b3z View in LinkedIn

PRIMORDIAL DIGITAL SOUP. "Someday the Net will be the summation of the world's total computing resources. All computers will link up into a chaotic digital soup in which everything is connected - indirectly or directly - to everything else." https://lnkd.in/e6ExXVY View in LinkedIn

ADAPTED SPECIES. "Computer viruses exhibit “species” with well-defined ecological niches based on host machine type, and variations within these species. These species are adapted to specific environments and will not survive if moved to a different environment." https://lnkd.in/eCG7b3z View in LinkedIn

DIGITAL CONTAGIONS, a history. https://lnkd.in/ebfBn_S View in LinkedIn

GROWTH. "Although accurate numbers are difficult to derive, reports over the last few years indicate an approximate yearly doubling in the number of systems infected by computer viruses. Clearly, computer viruses are exhibiting significant growth." https://lnkd.in/eCG7b3z View in LinkedIn

DEAD CODE. "In computer programming, dead code is a section in the source code of a program which is executed but whose result is never used in any other computation. While the result of a dead computation may never be used, it may raise exceptions or affect some global state, thus removal of such code may change the output of the program and introduce unintended bugs." https://lnkd.in/eXb6z-z View in LinkedIn

SO ENDS this first of two weekends on worm talk. It is becoming increasingly clear that what we assumed were simple creatures are far from simple. They organize complex societies, develop clever life strategies, mate and have community, based on conversations that we have been deaf to. This is true down to the supposedly simplest of creatures, bacteria and viruses. It is our superior attitude that makes us uncurious. View in LinkedIn

COMPUTER VIRUSES occupy the same type of Grey Zone in programming that biological viruses occupy in biology. Both defy mainstream thinking, and both challenge definitions of life defined by autonomy, reproduction and evolution. And both inform each other considerably in relation to optional its and available strategies. View in LinkedIn

POLYMORPHIC VIRUSES. "Indeed, they typify anagenetic evolutionary change: the sequential transformation within a population or species. Insofar as this is true, it is possible to speak of directional and disruptional selection, speciation, Hardy-Weinberg equivalence, Mendelian genetics, and myriad other evolutionary terms." https://lnkd.in/dGnhiwY View in LinkedIn