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Viruses Infected By Viruses

Posted by samzenpus on from the hoist-with-its-own-petard dept.

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.'"

3 of 341 comments (clear)

  1. Re:cancer by SpottedKuh · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Didn't you hear?, everything is linked to cancer or at least if you listen to the news thats what it seems like.

    There was a very interesting editorial piece in my local newspaper today on pretty much this topic that deserves to be read by anyone working in health / safety / threat / etc. research.

    The short point is that when every preliminary study, or even hypothesis, is presented by the news media in the same fashion as something that has stood up to rigourous testing (e.g., smoking causes cancer), people begin to filter out everything.

    That being said, my short summary doesn't do the editorial piece justice.

  2. there's no easy answer by QuantumG · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Is a mule alive? It can't reproduce. Maybe you object because the mule is *made* of cells, each of which can reproduce, but your body is full of cells that can't reproduce, are they alive? What's reproduction got to do with being alive anyway? If you take a cell that can reproduce and mutate the gene that produces a necessary protein for the reproductive process, is the cell now dead? It can still metabolize, make other proteins and interact with its environment. When it no longer can, that's when we say it is dead. As such "living" already has a good definition, even if it isn't too strict, and that is the opposite of dead or, more precisely, "inert". Viruses are not just a package of DNA, (or RNA), they're also a system of proteins for delivering that package from cell to cell. A virus most definitely isn't "inert" in the same sense that a "dead" thing is. So if something isn't dead, what is it? Undead? We typically reserve that word for horror writers, and just say "alive".

    I think the objectionable aspect of calling viruses "alive" comes from people thinking of viruses as "pure information", they're not. They're complex machines that can cause their own replication in their environment. Their environment just happens to be living cells, which are also complex machines that can cause their own replication in their environment.. To accept that a virus isn't alive because it needs its environment means you have to accept that a cell that requires a water environment isn't alive, or all multi-cellular organisms are not alive. Are mitochondria alive? Are the cells that require mitochondria alive? How about yeast? How about that mule?

    --
    How we know is more important than what we know.
  3. Re:reproduction by conlaw · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What about computer viruses and worms?

    TaDa! This just in from Science Daily:

    Alaa Abi-Haidar and Luis Rocha from the Department of Informatics, Indiana University, Bloomington, USA and the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciencia, Portugal, will present a paper entitled Adaptive Spam Detection Inspired by the Immune System on Thursday 7 August. They will describe how in the same way as the vertebrate adaptive immune system learns to distinguish harmless from harmful substances, these principles can be applied to spam detection.

    http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/08/080806194601.htm