Category: Uncategorized

"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

FOSSIL RECORD. "Retroviral infections that impacted the genome had to have happened repeatedly during primate evolution with the most recent episode in humans between 100,000 and 1 million years ago. This impressive fossil record, represented by endogenous retroviruses, is still likely a vast underestimate of the number of retroviral infections of human ancestors. Many retroviruses do not infect the germline." https://lnkd.in/d_5Sz4c View in LinkedIn

RESTATEMENT. "Eight percent of human genome endogenous retroviruses – “junk DNA”. Unable to be reactivated, harmless. 8% “junk DNA” suggests major evolutionary role of viruses." https://lnkd.in/djwcKBi View in LinkedIn

LIVING VIRAL MUSEUM. "The human genome is a living document of ancient and now extinct viruses. Indeed, DNA of retroviral origin makes up 8% of human genome sequence. At a very minimum, each of the more than 31 families of endogenous retrovirus found in the human genome must have arisen from one or more separate paleoviruses that infected the ancestors of modern humans." https://lnkd.in/d_5Sz4c View in LinkedIn

NOT JUST DISEASE CAUSING. Most viruses do not cause human disease. Many viruses perform useful functions for their hosts by persistent symbiosis. Scientists have characterized many disease-causing viruses, and this has led us to think that all viruses are dangerous. This has led us to a war on microbes mentality. We are only just now beginning to characterize the full viral universe. https://lnkd.in/duptQ7b View in LinkedIn