New Virus Breaks the Rules of Infection • Hacker News Board

Re: New Virus Breaks the Rules of Infection

#21

Post by jcoffland » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 5:23 PM UTC

cmurf wrote: post #10

jotux wrote: post #5

This would make for an interesting scifi plot. A global virus spreads that has multiple parts and people must limit their contact with specific people or risk acquiring components that activate the parts of the virus they carry.

http://memory-alpha.wikia.com/wiki/The_Vengeance_Factor_(epi...

That episode of STNG is about a virus which targets a specific DNA.

> In sickbay, Crusher reveals to Riker that Volnoth was killed by a microvirus. The interesting part was that the microvirus was specifically designed for a certain strain of DNA in Acamarians, approximately one in a million. Riker notes that this is unnatural, which leads Crusher to presume that Volnoth was murdered.

Re: New Virus Breaks the Rules of Infection

#22

Post by etendue » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 5:27 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #9

Ok, off tangent a bit, but if you randomly sample mosquitoes, those mosquitos have limited flight range, and you find things about the blood meals they have eaten. Are you at risk of invading the privacy of people who live near the mosquitoes?

Very interesting question. What if, by chance, you tested that blood and found it positive for HIV? What are your ethical obligations viz. notification as one example? (Mosquitos can't transmit HIV, but they can capture the virus while feeding)

Re: New Virus Breaks the Rules of Infection

#23

Post by whitehat2k9 » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 5:27 PM UTC

It's like nature's equivalent to Ubisoft's episodic release schedule of Hitman.

Re: New Virus Breaks the Rules of Infection

#24

Post by stonogo » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 5:27 PM UTC

seangrogg wrote: post #17

dexwiz wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Might be strange that we have sexes. Might also be strange that we only have 2 sexes. Many plants have two different generational types (haploid and diploid). Meaning each "generation" alternates between two different organism types. Fungi have both sexual and assexual reproduction [2]. But their sexual reproduction occurs when two cells directly fuse and then undergo meiosis into haploid spores instead of a diploid…

> Sex can be much more complicated than what it is in humans. Completely arbitrary anecdotal evidence would suggest otherwise.

GP was referencing reproduction, not politics or recreation.

Re: New Virus Breaks the Rules of Infection

#25

Post by dmichulke » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 5:27 PM UTC

jcoffland wrote: post #16

bluejekyll wrote: post #13

All I can think about after reading that is how to create some set of logic gates for data transfer. What if different combinations of the parts of a virus could be formed into different actual viruses and produce a single new output variant. For Example, you could combine 00, 01, 11, 10 and then the two part virus would output the result of a NAND operation. We could have naturally occurring computations in nature.…

How would you order the operations?

Not an expert but I suppose it's sufficient if you model the virus such that an eventual equilibrium is (or contains) your solution.

Re: New Virus Breaks the Rules of Infection

#26

Post by pmyjavec » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 5:28 PM UTC

gall wrote: post #11

Hairspray won't do it alone, but hairspray mixed with lipstick and perfume will be toxic, and untraceable.

Perfect

Re: New Virus Breaks the Rules of Infection

#27

Post by [deleted] » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 5:29 PM UTC

mataug wrote: post #20

jobu wrote: post #4

Surprisingly, sci-news.com has a better writeup on this than NPR - http://www.sci-news.com/biology/guaico-culex-virus-multicomp... “Although multicomponent genomes are relatively common among RNA viruses that infect plants and fungi, this method of genome organization has not previously been seen in animal viruses.” Edit: Thinking about this more, I wonder if this might be some sort of virus crossover vector from pla…

> Surprisingly, sci-news.com has a better writeup on this than NPR Are sci-news's usual writeups bad ? Why is it surprising ? Other from sci-news seemed fine to me .

[deleted]

Re: New Virus Breaks the Rules of Infection

#28

Post by jobu » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 5:34 PM UTC

mataug wrote: post #20

jobu wrote: post #4

Surprisingly, sci-news.com has a better writeup on this than NPR - http://www.sci-news.com/biology/guaico-culex-virus-multicomp... “Although multicomponent genomes are relatively common among RNA viruses that infect plants and fungi, this method of genome organization has not previously been seen in animal viruses.” Edit: Thinking about this more, I wonder if this might be some sort of virus crossover vector from pla…

> Surprisingly, sci-news.com has a better writeup on this than NPR Are sci-news's usual writeups bad ? Why is it surprising ? Other from sci-news seemed fine to me .

Poor choice of words maybe. Mostly I was surprised by the lower than expected quality of article on NPR. The title is clickbaity, and they definitely missed key bits of information.

Re: New Virus Breaks the Rules of Infection

#29

Post by zellyn » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 5:37 PM UTC

Reminds me of this… https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/01/01/25/1343218/directv...

Re: New Virus Breaks the Rules of Infection

#30

Post by emilga » Fri, Aug 26, 2016, 5:40 PM UTC

jotux wrote: post #5

This would make for an interesting scifi plot. A global virus spreads that has multiple parts and people must limit their contact with specific people or risk acquiring components that activate the parts of the virus they carry.

In one of Greg Egan's short stories there is a religious maniac who engineers a deadly STD so as to permit only one lifetime sexual partner, lest the virus be activated and kill the fornicator. (If I remember the plot correctly. It's in the "Axiomatic" short story collection.)