#virus

For the first time in history we can track the evolution of a pandemic in real time. Influenza viruses are notorious for their rapid mutation and unpredictable behaviour. ↗

— Margaret Chan

#evolution #first #first time #history #influenza

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image. ↗

— Stephen Hawking

#about #computer #count #created #destructive

It seems likely that most if not all the genetic information in any organism is carried by nucleic acid - usually by DNA, although certain small viruses use RNA as their genetic material. ↗

— Francis Crick

#although #any #carried #certain #dna

We inherit every one of our genes, but we leave the womb without a single microbe. As we pass through our mother's birth canal, we begin to attract entire colonies of bacteria. By the time a child can crawl, he has been blanketed by an enormous, unseen cloud of microorganisms--a hundred trillion or more. They are bacteria, mostly, but also viruses and fungi (including a variety of yeasts), and they come at us from all directions: other people, food, furniture, clothing, cars, buildings, trees, pets, even the air we breathe. They congregate in our digestive systems and our mouths, fill the space between our teeth, cover our skin, and line our throats. We are inhabited by as many as ten thousand bacterial species; those cells outnumber those which we consider our own by ten to one, and weigh, all told, about three pounds--the same as our brain. Together, they are referred to as our microbiome--and they play such a crucial role in our lives that scientists like [Martin J.] Blaser have begun to reconsider what it means to be human. ↗

— Michael Specter

#fungi #microbes #microbiome #microorganisms #viruses

Since most of the transmission is sexual transmission, you have a regional or local response to the virus. ↗

— Luc Montagnier

#most #regional #response #sexual #since

Just as the only reservoir for the typhus virus in nature is provided by man, so the only vector of infection is the louse. The bite of the louse is not virulent immediately after the infecting meal. It becomes so only towards the 7th day following infection. ↗

— Charles Jules Henry Nicole

#becomes #bite #day #following #immediately

I pictured myself as a virus or a cancer cell and tried to sense what it would be like. ↗

— Jonas Salk

#cell #i #like #myself #pictured

What seems to be clear to me is that after the primary infection most of the cells die indirectly, but at the later stage, when the viral load is very high, the virus kills a lot of cells directly. ↗

— Luc Montagnier

#cells #clear #die #directly #high

I was less successful in my attempts to effect preventive vaccination against typhus by using the virus and in trying to produce large quantities of serum using large animals. ↗

— Charles Jules Henry Nicole

#attempts #effect #i #large #less

How is it that you keep mutating and can still be the same virus? ↗

— Chuck Palahniuk

#mutation #virus #change