Slashdot Mirror
World's Largest Virus
Gavinsblog writes "New Scientist is reporting that the largest virus yet discovered may have been found in a water tower in the UK. Dubbed the 'Mimivirus', it may be related to Smallpox. It is not yet known if it causes disease."
Kathy Kinney?
(For those who don't know, she plays Mimi on the Drew Carey Show).
You should never take life too seriously - You'll never get out of it alive.
No, methinks Drew Carey had a hand in this... or perhaps Mr. Wick?
Pig!
Well, someone had to say it ...
"You may all go to hell and I will go to Texas"
Sen. Davy Crocket to US Congress, Nov. 1, 1835
Are my Windows installations vulnerable to this one, too? If it's really that big, then it probably won't fit through port 135 even if I leave it open, right?
How are you going to keep them down on the farm once they've seen Karl Hungus?
Scientists announced that because the virus is coded for NT4, there will be no efforts create a vaccine and that patients should upgrade their immune systems or turn off their nasal port.
__ Someday, but not this morning, I'll finally learn to use the preview button.
So, are larger virii better or worse? I would think that as far as detection... larger is better. But how about as far as being killed by immuno-response, and/or reproducing, complexity, etc?
The article indicates that the virus is larger DNA-wise... which indicates higher complexity, possibly a better ability to adapt?
It's interesting that the virus is big... but what consequences does this have medically?
That's how all viruses reproduce. They latch onto a host cell and inject their own DNA into it. The virus DNA then proceeds to hijack the cell's reproductive mechanisms, forcing it to make more viruses inside itself until the cell becomes so full of these new viruses that it bursts open and dies, thereby unleashing the newly made viruses.
It is in the best interest of a virus not to kill or severely impair its host. They're already evolving fast enough to keep pace with their hosts, so there's no need to invent a process to speed it up. HIV is actually not in evolutionary equilibrium with humans yet. It mutates so rapidly the immune system can't keep up with it. It will eventually learn to restrain itself, but not before it has killed millions more people.
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show
2. Some viruses use RNA instead of DNA.
3. Some are released from the host cell via non-lethal means (budding, though budding often is lethal). Many plant viruses require mechanical damage, often from the mouthparts of an insect, to get out. Another method for plant viruses is to travel through cytoplasmic connections between cells, a process that doesn't require lysis (how could a virus burst a plant cell wall anyway?).
4. Some viruses, instead of reproducing, go latent by integrating into the host DNA. Sometimes this triggers the host cell into becoming cancerous. In this case, the host, rather than bursting, becomes "immortal."
"I'm so moist I'm sticking to the leather." -Kermit the Frog on The Late Late Show