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Viruses Infected By Viruses
SpaceAdmiral writes "Scientists have discovered a virus that can infect another virus. The fact that viruses can essentially get sick may change the debate over whether they are alive or not. Check out Nature for a slightly more technical article about the 'virophage.'"
Now those fags with AIDS have to worry about their AIDS getting AIDS?
A lot of times in school, I was told viruses aren't alive because they can't reproduce. I always wondered if this would apply to eunichs or mule/quote
Then that would explain why you are such a fucktard then. If I were you, I would go and ask for all of my money back from the school and find the fastest way to earn a darwin award.
Software viruses catching virus isn't anything new.
I worked on this back in the mid-late 80's, where my own antivirus program (VScan) needed to be able to nest up several levels of infection.
Also note that the plural of virus isn't viri. Virus is a group noun like "money" and "slime". Most often you want to use "virus" for both singular and plural. Rarely, for speaking of groups, you may use "viruses".
A rule of thumb is that if you could say "moneys" or "slimes", use "viruses", otherwise use "virus".
The way I see it, life (and "awareness" too, for that matter) is a degree, not a binary. Higher life forms are more alive than bacteria, which in turn are more alive than viruses, which are more alive than iron oxide.
Why try to make a definition that neatly divides things into alive and not? What philosophical interest does it have? Reinforcing religion, perhaps?
"So now explain what you mean by "preproduce""
Awww, can your brain really not figure out what I obviously meant there? Feel sorry for ya dude.
The revolution will not be televised... but it will have a page on Wikipedia
Yeah, but judging some lifeforms as higher than a bacterium isn't that hard, and that was the comparison that was used in the post you replied to. Not higher as in higher, overall.