Well, this is interesting, for sure: “The findings show that this broad class of single-stranded DNA viruses, which infect all three cellular domains of life, have acquired their genetic components through complex evolutionary processes not traceable to a single ancestral event.” Maybe there wasn’t a “single ancestral event” for cells either. Also: The hope is to “resolve the question of how cell-based life came to co-exist with the planet’s staggering array of viruses (dubbed the virome).” One commonly heard hypothesis is that viruses are degraded cells. It will be interesting to hear alternative theses.
Tag: viruses
Do viruses play a hidden role in evolution?
Viruses seem to be everywhere, doing a lot of things, with apparent “ingenuity.” Maybe a discovery down the road will be that they cause many changes currently interpreted according to some Darwinian theory (kin selection, costly fitness, what have you … )
The remarkable world of virus communication
Do viruses think? Not in the human sense. As with plants, these communications are signals, not abstractions. But the signals raise an important question: If viruses seek to remain in an organized state, why are they not “alive”? If they are not “alive,” what are they?
Altruism? In viruses?
How can viruses have altruism if they are not alive? Let’s assume that this is not an argument for panpsychism (You are conscious, sure, but so is your coffee mug.) It seems to be an argument that viruses behave as life forms do.
Can the giant Medusa virus help explain the evolution of complex life?
As described, the authors’ explanation doesn’t follow. The Medusavirus substituting its own DNA for that of the host is no different from the cuckoo substituting its own offspring for another bird’s in a nest. The fact that the strategy works does not necessarily demonstrate a hereditary relationship between the two species.
Unique giant virus messes with current theories of viral evolution
Giant viruses have only been known from the past few decades. There is still debate about whether viruses are actually life forms. Surely, there will be many game changers to come. Anyone attempting to compile an evolutionary history of giant viruses would be like the person who writes the history of a major league playoff series after the first game. Without the crystal ball.
One way viruses get spread “should never have evolved”?
Maybe in some fields, we need more “stupid” ideas that don’t depend on what “should have” evolved.
Reset! Different segs of virus genome can exist in different cells but work together
Researchers: It has long been believed that all of the genome segments must move together from cell to cell to cause an infection. But the new study shows this is not the case.
Researcher: Virus sequences in human genome implicated in ALS
The genome isn’t what it used to be.
New paper: Cambrian explosion driven by viruses from space
Delivered by comets. Abstract: We review the salient evidence consistent with or predicted by the Hoyle-Wickramasinghe (H-W) thesis of Cometary (Cosmic) Biology. Much of this physical and biological evidence is multifactorial. One particular focus are the recent studies which date the emergence of the complex retroviruses of vertebrate lines at or just before the Cambrian […]
Bats “steal” genes from ebola-related virus
Which now seem to serve an as-yet-unknown function in the bat. From ScienceDaily: Some 18 million years ago, an ancestor of mouse-eared bats “stole” genetic material from an ancient virus related to Bola. The swiped genetic sequence — a gene called VP35 — has remained largely intact in the bats despite the passage of time, with few […]
Virus expert highlights the conflict over whether viruses are alive
From science writer Suzan Mazur, at Oscillations, interviewing Bogdan Dragnea, who studies the physical structure of viruses via spectrosopy: Suzan Mazur: Do you consider viruses live organisms since viruses can recognize their targets, attach, and infect their hosts—most viruses using a tail spike and needle [see following Parent lab image]—and as you’ve noted, they can […]
Viruses invent their own genes? Then what is left of Darwinism?
From ScienceDaily: In 2013, the discovery of two giant viruses unlike anything seen before blurred the line between the viral and cellular world. Pandoraviruses are as big as bacteria, and contain genomes that are more complex than those found in some eukaryotic organisms (1). Their strange amphora shape and enormous, atypical genome (2) led scientists […]