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Surreal Farber · 08-06-2008, 11:37 PM

Viruses can catch colds, says study that redefines life itself

Quote:

The debate about what counts as a living thing is fuelled today by the discovery of the first virus that is able to fall "ill" by being infected with another virus.

Viruses are glorified scraps of genetic code that are exquisitely designed to pirate a host to reproduce: the common cold virus needs cells in the nose and respiratory tract to reproduce, before being spread with a sneeze.

But the discovery of a giant virus that itself falls ill through infection by another virus seems to suggest they too are alive, highlighting how there is no watertight definition of what exactly scientists mean when they refer to something as "living".

"There's no doubt, this is a living organism," the journal Nature is told by Prof Jean-Michel Claverie, director of the Mediterranean Institute of Microbiology in Marseilles, part of France's basic-research agency CNRS. "The fact that it can get sick makes it more alive."

Raindrop Drinkwater · 08-07-2008, 01:56 AM

What do you do when one of your viruses catches a cold?
Do you give it aspirin?

Siyu Suen · 08-07-2008, 02:01 AM

Oh crap. No one tell PETA

Malachi · 08-07-2008, 03:04 AM

I love the smell of tabloid science journalism in the morning.

The mimivirus is an odd breed but unlike any other thing that we call "alive" lacks some essential metabolic tricks which makes it completely dependent upon a host for replication. There are aspects of it which are novel, and may even alter some niggling little details about how we humans partition the one true tree of life, but then again that has always been about our naming schemes than about anything real.

When the mimivirus attacks a host amoeba, it directs the production of what are very much like prokaryotic cells, borrowing all kinds of machinery from the host. It is these psuedo-cells that become infected by the parasitic virii (or colds). The virus itself isn't infected because it can't be, there is nothing to "infect" in any sense we have of the term.

I wouldn't call it groundbreaking, but - if you are me - it's still pretty interesting.

Fade Languish · 08-07-2008, 04:40 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malachi

I love the smell of tabloid science journalism in the morning.

The mimivirus is an odd breed but unlike any other thing that we call "alive" lacks some essential metabolic tricks which makes it completely dependent upon a host for replication. There are aspects of it which are novel, and may even alter some niggling little details about how we humans partition the one true tree of life, but then again that has always been about our naming schemes than about anything real.

When the mimivirus attacks a host amoeba, it directs the production of what are very much like prokaryotic cells, borrowing all kinds of machinery from the host. It is these psuedo-cells that become infected by the parasitic virii (or colds). The virus itself isn't infected because it can't be, there is nothing to "infect" in any sense we have of the term.

I wouldn't call it groundbreaking, but - if you are me - it's still pretty interesting.

That process is pretty interesting in itself.

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08-07-2008, 03:04 AM	#4 (permalink)
Malachi the bathwater & the baby fish are inherently sarcastic Join Date: Sep 2007 Posts: 2,361	I love the smell of tabloid science journalism in the morning. The mimivirus is an odd breed but unlike any other thing that we call "alive" lacks some essential metabolic tricks which makes it completely dependent upon a host for replication. There are aspects of it which are novel, and may even alter some niggling little details about how we humans partition the one true tree of life, but then again that has always been about our naming schemes than about anything real. When the mimivirus attacks a host amoeba, it directs the production of what are very much like prokaryotic cells, borrowing all kinds of machinery from the host. It is these psuedo-cells that become infected by the parasitic virii (or colds). The virus itself isn't infected because it can't be, there is nothing to "infect" in any sense we have of the term. I wouldn't call it groundbreaking, but - if you are me - it's still pretty interesting.