Tag Archives: Viruses.

THE BEADY EYE SAYS: EVOLOUTION AND VIRUS MUTATIONS ARE BOTH ONGOIING PROCESSES.

07 Tuesday Dec 2021

Posted by in 2021. The year for change., Coronavirus (COVID-19), COVID-19, Evolution, Viruses., WHAT IS TRUTH

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(Eighteen-minute read)

From the dawn of humanity and throughout history, infectious diseases have shaped human evolution, demography, migrations, and history they have killed well over half of all humans who have ever lived on earth.

Viruses are precursors of life as we know it, they infiltrate every aspect of our natural world. New viruses and strains were discovered in every decade of the second half of the 20th century. Today we don’t even know how many viruses human beings are subject to, even how many inhabit us at this very moment.

As to where viruses came from is not a simple question to answer. The origins of many human pathogens are ancient, extending back over time scales of thousands to millions of years.

It’s unclear how they first evolved but what is clear is viruses are tiny but their impact on life is huge. This is true not just for people, but for all life forms on earth.

It is estimated that there are 10 viruses for every bacterium on Earth.

We humans have been around for about 200.000 years while the Earth has been around for 4.6 billion years. You do the maths. 

Strictly speaking, viruses can’t die, for the simple reason that they aren’t alive in the first place. A virus outside a host is a package of genetic material if it does not find a host it goes back to being just a package of dormant genetic material.

Hence, there shouldn’t even be any question about their survival and their effect on evolution. 

Therefore the term “survive” may not be the most appropriate term when it comes to a virus. 

                                —————————–

To us, disease-causing viruses and bacteria may be evildoers — invaders of our bodies — who, if they can be said to have any aim at all, it is to do us harm.

But by shifting our perspective to their scale it reveals that these pathogens are evolving populations of organisms like any other, whose habitat just happens to be the human body. Like other organisms, these germs are shaped by natural selection to live and successfully reproduce.

We view them as pathogens, however, because the resources they use to do this (and which they destroy in the process) are the cells of our own bodies.

Many of the traits that make us feel sick during an infection are actually pathogenic adaptations — characteristics favored by natural selection that help these germs reproduce and spread.

Without legs, wings, fins, or any of the usual means of locomotion, your descendents’ prospects for reaching a new host under their own power are nil.

However, natural selection has provided pathogens with a number of sneaky strategies for making the leap to a new host, including:

  • Droplet transmission — for example, being passed along when one host accidentally sneezes on another. The flu is transmitted this way.
  • Airborne transmission — for example, being exhaled by one host and inhaled by another. Tuberculosis is transmitted this way.
  • Vector transmission — getting picked up by a carrier (the vector — e.g., a mosquito) and carried to a new host. Malaria is transmitted this way.
  • Waterborne transmission — leaving one host (e.g., in feces), infecting the water supply, and being taken up (e.g., in drinking water) by a new host. Cholera is transmitted this way.
  • Sit-and-wait transmission — being able to live outside a host for long periods of time until coming into contact with a new host. Smallpox can survive for years outside of a host!

Some like it warm and damp and others need cold and dry to survive outside a host and any other combination you can think of applies.  They don’t breathe, eat, produce waste, or otherwise. In other, words they do not perform metabolism on their own.

They do need a temperature range to use. If not, they are destroyed but since most viruses are deactivated at temperatures between 165 and 212 degrees Fahrenheit -100 Celsius.

Can they exist in space?  Absolutely. Yes and no. Space is no virus vacation.

Viruses can withstand freezing temperatures 

Viruses are a huge source of selective pressure in the evolution of a species, such as a provirus, a virus that inserts its DNA directly into the chromosomes of the host cell. Rather than just having a separate strand of DNA or RNA floating around in the cell, the provirus adds itself to the host genome and gets replicated with the other genes.

This is the reason the human body reacts to infection by raising its own temperature.

They may be descendants of previously free-living organisms that adapted a parasitic replication strategy. Perhaps they existed before life started and led to the evolution of, cellular life. Whether they did or not is of little consequence as discoveries have continued in the 21st century as new viral diseases such as SARS and Nipah virus and Covid have emerged.

Using the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic as a model, experts suggested the COVID-19 outbreak will last between 18 and 24 months.

I say that they are totally wrong with 7 billion of us rising the chances of genetic mutations, virus mutations will only increase, exposing us to a different set of infections diseases.

It is becoming more and more apparent that the Covid virus has hijacked the flu virus or vice versa. 

All-in-all a virus needs to keep infecting new hosts or it’ll simply run out of ways to reproduce as biological systems either die or figure out how to kill it.

However, if it kills the host too fast, it can’t effectively reach a new host. If the host figures out how to kill it too fast, same thing.

                                    ——————–

These days as are getting fatter, taller, and perhaps cooler we battle diseases with drugs, and vaccines. 

However it stands to reason because we are not immune to the effects of natural selection and our Biology never standstill with the Earth’s temperature increases, we will have to cool down. (Biology is a science and there are many technologies within its scope. So, technology and biology are not opposed concepts.) One contains the other.

Our average temperature is about 98.6 degrees, above that, we have a fever, below we have hypothermia. 

Our brains can only understand “information technologies”. But the concept of technology goes far beyond that into our evolution. 

Innovative new technologies are already restoring and enhancing human sensory and motor functions like never before, but viruses are not will not be controlled by any technology. 

Viruses are the smallest of all microbes. They are said to be so small that 500 million rhinoviruses (which cause the common cold) could fit onto the head of a pin.

Population concentrations and movement, both animal and human, have been steadily increasing in this century, enhancing transmission of respiratory and enteric viruses and compounding the difficulty of preventing environmental transmission.

This could open the door for the evolution of more virulent strains.

Maybe there are other explanations for diseases and our relationship to nature besides those dictated by the accepted theories of the medical-industrial complex that we have been forced to live under.

Perhaps we should recognize them as the fourth domain of life and not dismiss them, if only because they do in fact reproduce outside their own “bodies.”

The more common RNA viruses—like the coronavirus behind the current pandemic.

DNA outcompeted RNA as a type of informational code. But RNA survives as an essential part of terrestrial biology, as we’re seeing with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-

The emergence of the omicron variant is yet another reminder of the urgency to vaccinate to stop the further spread and evolution of SARS-CoV-2. 

Infectious diseases continue to be a major cause of mortality globally, responsible for between a quarter to a third of all deaths and nearly half of all deaths in people under the age of 45, with most of these in principle avoidable.

We have to let go of the self-serving notion that we can control an inexorable natural process. To date, over 250 million infections have been confirmed globally with over 5 million deaths.  

Approximately five percent of the oxygen we breathe is virally derived.

Think about that the next time you take a deep breath.

The current Covid pandemic is just one in the series of ongoing and never-ending deadly viral assaults. Viruses are key drivers of evolution, all the essential things they do in the world far outweigh the bad things.

Without viruses, life and the planet as we know it would cease to exist. And even if we wanted to, it’s probably impossible to annihilate Covid – a virus.

Finally, there is no proof that alcohol kills the virus but the odd glass of whisky might help.  

All human comments are appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

With less active lives ( With people now moving less than ever ) there is a degradation in human strength

We don’t challenge our bones.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. WHY IS IT THAT WE ARE UNABLE TO KILL A VIRUS?

04 Thursday Mar 2021

Posted by in #whatif.com, 2021. The year for change., COVID-19, Covid-19 Vaccines., Unanswered Questions., Viruses.

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(Twelve-minute read) 

 

Humans have been killing for thousands and thousands of years. Not just each other but almost every living thing, so why are we unable to kill viruses?

First, to kill a virus we must know what we are trying to kill.

Bacteria are not the most abundant microbes that live in and on our bodies.

That award goes to viruses.

If you think you don’t have viruses, think again.

To put it simply, when it comes to where viruses live in the human body, figuring out where they don’t live is a far better question than asking where they do.

It has been estimated that there are over 380 trillion viruses inhabiting us, a community is collectively known as the human virome.

Here’s where viruses come in.

They’ve already figured out how to kill bacteria. It’s all they live for.

Viruses are the most common biological entities on Earth.

Experts estimate there are around 10,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000 of them, and if they were all lined up they would stretch from one side of the galaxy to the other.

So it’s clear that there’s a war being fought on our body surfaces every minute of every day, and we haven’t a clue who’s winning or what the consequences of this war might be.

The name Virus is from a Latin word meaning “slimy liquid” or “poison.”

They are microorganisms smaller than a bacterium that cannot grow or reproduce apart from a living cell.

They are not plants, animals, or prokaryotic bacteria (single-cell organisms without defined nuclei), and they are generally placed in their own kingdom.

In fact, viruses should not even be considered organisms, in the strictest sense, because they are not free-living—i.e., they cannot reproduce and carry on metabolic processes without a host cell.

Viruses must rely on a host for energy production, reproduction, and survival. It can remain inside the host for extended periods of time without causing any apparent changes in the host cell.

Viruses are quintessential parasites. They derive energy, as well as all other metabolic functions, from the host cell.

Most viruses vary in diameter from 20 nanometres (nm; 0.0000008 inches) to 250–400 nm; the largest, however, measure about 500 nm in diameter and are about 700–1,000 nm in length.

It is still traditional to divide viruses into three categories: those that infect animals, plants, or bacteria.

Antibiotics are not effective against viruses because viruses are entirely devoid of the machinery for life processes.

If you want to learn more follow the link below.  

                          https://www.britannica.com/science/virus

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The resilience of viruses is what has made them such a menace throughout history remaining to this day the biggest and minuscule threats to humanity.

They don’t have to play by the same rules that living things play by.

They don’t really do anything — they’re effectively inert until they come into contact with a host cell, existing like freeloading zombies — not quite dead, yet certainly not alive.

“Viruses can be present in many locations – they can lurk in people, they can lurk in materials that are stored in freezers, they can lurk in wildlife and domestic animals – it’s really impossible to say if a virus has gone extinct.

It appears they take advantage of our bodies because our bodies are governed by our brains, which are unable to remember if they fought with a particular virus or not. So they mutate and hoodwink the immune system because our immune system is out of commission.  

So the only way to drive a virus to extinction is to eliminate it in the wild, which is an impossible task.

Regardless of whether there is a single person or animal not infected anywhere on the planet, we have to live with the virus. 

                                       —————————–

The last naturally occurring case of smallpox was reported in 1977.

Measles, smallpox, anthrax, and tuberculosis were all gifts from our farmed animals.

In 1980, the World Health Organization declared that smallpox had been eradicated. Currently, there is no evidence of naturally occurring smallpox transmission anywhere in the world.

Although a worldwide immunization program eradicated smallpox disease decades ago, small quantities of smallpox virus officially still exist in two research laboratories in Atlanta, Georgia, and Russia.

But what occurs at the end of a virus’s existence is only just starting to gather interest.

Why do some viruses disappear? And what happens to them?

In a nutshell, we get lucky. 

Sars was driven to extinction by a combination of sophisticated contact-tracing and the quirks of the virus itself. Other than Sars, only two other viruses have ever been driven to extinction on purpose – smallpox, and rinderpest, which affects cattle.

The war against these two viruses was won using vaccines, which are also set to eliminate polio – cases have decreased by 99% since the 1980s – and possibly eventually measles, though recently these efforts have been set back by war, the anti-vaxxer movement.

With Covid-19 the virus can’t break into just any cell in the body. Instead, one of its proteins will bind to another protein. Once the invasion takes place, the cell, in essence, is transformed into a factory that churns out hundreds and hundreds of copies of the virus making it difficult to distinguish a healthy cell from an infected one.

.  Viruses pick up errors in their genetic code as they spread, so in some cases it is possible to simply wait them out (Credit: Reuters)

We are left with speeding up viral evolution artificially with drugs that could bring some benefits.

At the heart of the plan is the biology of “RNA viruses” – a group that includes many of humanity’s most intractable pathogens, including HIV, the flu, coronaviruses, and Ebola. Their genetic material is made of RNA as opposed to DNA, which means that when they hijack their host’s machinery to copy themselves, they don’t include a “proofreading” step where they check for mistakes.

But this staggering rate of mutation is a double-edged sword.

Above a certain rate, mutations become harmful, leading to virus strains that are burdened with genetic faults that hinder their spread.

This is usually thought of as a bad thing for humans, because these mutations mean that there’s an extraordinary amount of genetic diversity among RNA viruses, allowing them to evolve rapidly – so any vaccines or drugs that target them quickly become obsolete.

However eventually, this could lead to their extinction or ours.

In the meantime, one remedy for this Catch 22 is to make a conscious effort to remind ourselves about the world before vaccines.

Here are a few to remember. 

Smallpox – HIV – Influenza – Rofavirus – Marburg – Measles – Ebola – Rabies – Hib – Hantavirus – Dengue – Sars-Cov – Sars- Coc2 – Mers -Cov – Swine Flu – Avian Flue – Whooping Cough – Mumps – Chickenpox – Diptheria – Rubella.  (Cancer is neither a bacteria nor a virus however it is known that some viruses lead to cancer or help to kill cancer.) 

The 1918 flu pandemic, which infected a third of the world’s population and killed 50 million. This strain of influenza has gone extinct along with every flu virus that existed in humans until about 120 years ago. However, every few decades, a new type of flu will evolve quietly accumulating mutations that were useless or even actively harmful to its own survival. 

In the meantime, please can we learn two obvious lessons?

First, let’s stop bringing wild animals into markets alive (if at all): viruses do not survive long in dead bodies, even if not refrigerated. It’s a cruel practice anyway.

And second, let’s keep our distance from bats. As long as there are bats, there will be zoonotic viruses. Definitely don’t eat them.

Your missions down the research rabbit hole might’ve even led you to other novel ways of killing germs: namely,  Steam and ultraviolet (UV) light.

I would say any claim that they do is false.

As for their ability to kill COVID-19, your guess is as good as anyone.

To kill a virus one must break its out shell, without harming the healthy cells around it.

Nither shaking or steaming or sticking your head in a microwave will kill a virus.

Make no mistake about it; the viruses that have evolved with us for so many years are not only part of our past but will play a significant role in the future of human health.

Get Vaccinated. 

 

The fight against Ebola in Africa has been complicated by the fact the virus continues to circulate in wild animals (Credit: Reuters)

 

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.

 

 

 

THE BEADY EYE ASKS. DO YOU KNOW WHAT A VIRUS IS?

28 Thursday May 2020

Posted by in CORONA VIRUS., COVID-19, Viruses.

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(Three-minute read) 

 


No, I am not talking about a computer virus, but viruses that do not discriminate whether you are a robot or not.  
Viruses are by far the most abundant biological entities on Earth and they outnumber all the others put together.

So let’s try and put them into layman’s terms.

They are neither dead nor alive!

They are non-cellular organisms, which are enclosed in a protective envelope or protein coat – capsid and have a nucleic acid core comprising of DNA or RNA.

The presence of spikes helps in attaching the viruses to the host cell.

They do not grow, neither respire nor metabolize, but they reproduce.

They are considered both as living and non-living things.

They are inactive when they are present outside of host cells but become active within host cells. They cause several infections and reproduce within the host cell by using the enzymes and raw materials.

They can be transmitted by several methods, airborne, contaminated water, or food, sexual contact with the infected person, transfusion, biting. 

In a nutshell, a virus is a non-cellular, infectious entity made up of genetic material and protein that can invade and reproduce only within the living cells of bacteria, plants, and animals.

A virus cannot replicate itself outside the host cell. Therefore, it enters and attaches itself to a specific host cell, injects its genetic material, reproduces by using the host genetic material, and finally, the host cell splits open, releasing the new viruses.

Viruses can also be crystallized, which no other living organisms can do.

It is these factors that lead to viruses being classified in the grey area – between the living and non-living. During this stage, they remain dormant, until they enter another host, restarting the cycle all over.

They give us everything from the common cold, influenza, chickenpox, and cold sores to serious diseases such as rabies, Ebola virus disease, AIDS (HIV), avian influenza, and SARS, COVID -19 all caused by viruses.

The ability of viruses to cause devastating epidemics in human societies has led to the concern that viruses could be weaponized for biological warfare. 

Viruses infect all cellular life and, although viruses occur universally, each cellular species has its own specific range that often infects only that species. 

There are billions of them, most unknown.

In the evolutionary history of life, it is unclear where they come from because they have no fossils. However, in evolution, viruses are an important means of horizontal gene transfer, which increases genetic diversity.

They are a life form evolving through natural selection and are found wherever there is life.

They are transmitted from nearly every life form to another.

They are now recognized as ancient and as having origins that pre-date the divergence of life into the three biological domains. ie Bacteria – Archaea -Eukaryote.

I can hear you saying what is the difference from one domain to another.

Fortunately, I don’t have the knowledge or space to answer but below might help. 

Bacteria and Archaea – The Major Differences

Basis Archaea Bacteria
Reproduction and Growth Asexual Reproduction, by the process of fragmentation, budding and binary fission Asexual Reproduction. Eubacteria produces spore to stay latent for several years.
Cell Membrane Pseudopeptidoglycan Lipopolysaccharide/ Peptidoglycan
Metabolism Activity Methanogenesis Autotrophy, Aerobic, and Anaerobic Respiration, Fermentation, and Photosynthesis.
RNA Consists of three RNA Consists of single RNA
Thriving Habitat Can sustain in extremely harsh environment such as oceans, hot springs, marshlands, hot springs, and gut of humans They are generally found in soil, organic matter, earth’s crust, water, bodies of animals and plants, radioactive wastes, hot springs, etc.

There are four different types of viruses:

Animal viruses.

Plant viruses.

Insect virus.

Bacteriophage.

(The virus which infects bacterial cells is known as

bacteriophage.)

And one other that is not yet listed. 

Donald Trump wearing a suit and tie: President Donald Trump speaks to members of the media on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Tuesday, May 5, 2020, before boarding Marine One for a short trip to Andrews Air Force Base, Md., and then on to Phoenix, Ariz.

So here is the Question:

Maybe someone can answer this very confusing question with some layman’s clarity. 

Which came first Bacteria or the VIruses?  

Currently, there are three hypotheses for the origin of viruses, all of which presume either bacteria came first, or they arose at the same time since viruses require a host.

Since viruses do not leave fossils, and their origin goes back to the dawn of life on earth, about 3.5-3.8 billion years ago you would think that they came first, but bacteria were around at the same time. 

They are both the first two branches in the tree of life.

Virus and bacteria share a common ancestor – a fully functioning, self-replicating cell that lived around 3.4 billion years ago, shortly afterlife first emerged on the planet.  

Bacteria became more complex while the virus became simpler as they developed from cells, therefore they should be less diverse because cells would contain the entire range of genes available to viruses.

The biggest difference between viruses and bacteria is that viruses must have a living host – like a plant or animal – to multiply, while most bacteria can grow on non-living surfaces.

Antibiotics cannot kill viruses but they can kill most bacteria and we have spent trillions trying to kill bacteria. 

Hundreds of millions of viruses can be found in one square meter; the same space holds tens of millions of bacteria.

Bacteria are living organisms but opinions vary on whether viruses are.

A virus is an organic structure that interacts with living organisms.

A virus is acellular (has no cell structure) and requires a living host to survive and reproduce by injecting their own DNA into the host.

Bacteria are alive. Viruses, on the other hand, hang around outside the body for hours, even days till the get the opportunity to become alive. 

It is unlikely the debate over which evolved first; viruses or bacteria will ever be settled. Because the history and the proofs of origin have faded with time.

So infections caused by harmful bacteria can almost always be cured with antibiotics and some viruses can be vaccinated against, most, such as HIV and the viruses which cause the common cold, are incurable.

The only virus that man has particularly partially conquered to date is Polio, Measles, and Chickenpox. The rest some of which you will never hear off are Ebola, Zika, Crimean-Congo hemorrhagic fever, Marburg hemorrhagic fever, Lassa fever, MERS and SARS coronavirus diseases, Nipah and Rift Valley fever, Chikungunya, Thrombocytopenia, Smallpox, and the new contender Covid-19. 

Are all killers. 

So let’s get to the point.

I have often wondered with us spending trillions on killing bacteria does bacteria passed on its mutations to mutating Viruses.

We told to wash our hands with soap because it dissolves the fat membrane of a virus killing it– or rather, we should say it becomes inactive as viruses aren’t really alive.

Now I am not advocating a Donal Dump that we should be all shallowing Parazone that kills all known cling on’s.

 Most bar soaps are considered harmless (nontoxic) and most people usually recover after swallowing soap. We swallow millions of capsules in our lifetime so why not a soap capsule.  

We are still in an arms race against many diseases, but we stand at a unique period in human history where it’s possible to imagine a day when we have conquered the disease. 

Here’s a quote from “The Matrix”  It’s from Agent Smith (An entity the “I’d like to share a revelation that I’ve had during my time here. It came to me when I tried to classify your species and I realized that you’re not actually mammals. Every mammal on this planet instinctively develops a natural equilibrium with the surrounding environment but you humans do not. You move to an area and you multiply and multiply until every natural resource is consumed and the only way you can survive is to spread to another area. There is another organism on this planet that follows the same pattern. Do you know what it is? A virus. Human beings are a disease, a cancer of this planet. You’re a plague and we are the cure.”

All human comments appreciated. All like clicks and abuse chucked in the bin.