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What's a virus, anyway? The bare-bones basics

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Re: What's a virus, anyway? The bare-bones basics

#71

Post by FabHK »

trehalose wrote: post #28

> Try multiplying a billion billion billion billion by a trillion trillion trillion trillion, then multiply that by a thousand, and that (10 to the 31st power) is the mind-numbing estimate of how many individual viral particles are estimated to populate the planet. What definitions of "billion" and "trillion" are they using? 10 to the 31st would be only ten million trillion trillion, going by the common definition of…

  4 x 9 + 4 x 12 + 3 = 87 
  4 x 3 + 4 x  4 + 3 = 31.
That’s the only genesis of this error I could come up with - somehow they associated billion with 3 and trillion with 4 (conceivably because “N-illion” = 1000^(N+1) [1], and then forgot about the factor of three embedded in the base of 1000).

[1] in the US system. In Germany and historically the UK, apparently, it’s 1000,000^N = 1000^(2N), which I personally prefer.

Re: What's a virus, anyway? The bare-bones basics

#72

Post by blattimwind »

hahajk wrote: post #22
tcgv wrote: post #5

> Is a virus a living thing? Maybe. I remember 20 year ago, at school, when the biology teacher was presenting this dilemma. Ever since, when I hear someone saying "doing this will kill the virus", it triggers my brain into this subject, since you can't kill something if it's not alive ;) Somewhat related, I also like the concept of the "Viruses of the Mind" [1], which makes an analogy between the spreading of a biol…

It reminds me of something I read in response to that question (I can’t remember where): People love to place things in tidy categories; nature doesn’t.

All taxonomies, but especially those concerning objects not made by man, are obviously subject to epistemic anthropocentrism.

Re: What's a virus, anyway? The bare-bones basics

#73

Post by DantesKite »

dimtion wrote: post #25

Is there a a good read on how RNA and DNA work for a Computer Scientist? And more generally how biology, genetics, epigenetics, virus, etc work? Many vulgarization sources say that DNA is like the source code of life. But they mostly skim across the issue and go to conclusions like "this gene or set of genes are responsible for that outcome". But coming from a CS background that sounds a bit like non-sense. I feel li…

I like your perspective.

I feel like information is the mother of all sciences and computer science has developed powerful tools for dealing with certain aspects of it.

I don’t see why it can’t address certain fundamental issues in biology either.

Re: What's a virus, anyway? The bare-bones basics

#74

Post by ufo »

tigershark wrote: post #21
koheripbal wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And also why common blood pressure medications which block that same receptor are (probably) and good anti-viral for them. Losartan is currently in clinical trials for this new usage.

From what I remember it’s the opposite. They target the ACE receptors inhibiting them and for this reason they make the ACE2 receptors more sensible facilitating the virus infection. https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lanres/article/PIIS2213-2...

More precisely, ACE inhibitors cause the body to compensate by producing more ACE receptors.

Re: What's a virus, anyway? The bare-bones basics

#75

Post by civil_engineer »

im3w1l wrote: post #38
trehalose wrote: post #28

> Try multiplying a billion billion billion billion by a trillion trillion trillion trillion, then multiply that by a thousand, and that (10 to the 31st power) is the mind-numbing estimate of how many individual viral particles are estimated to populate the planet. What definitions of "billion" and "trillion" are they using? 10 to the 31st would be only ten million trillion trillion, going by the common definition of…

Yeah, if you multiply "a billion billion billion billion by a trillion trillion trillion trillion, then multiply that by a thousand" you get a larger number than the atoms in the observable universe.

That’s a lot of viruses! I’m staying inside.

Re: What's a virus, anyway? The bare-bones basics

#76

Post by [deleted] »

umvi wrote: post #62
vikramkr wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't recommend trying to understand it through analogy to CS - I'm a biologist and know enough CS to feel uncomfortable really using any of the usual analogies. The problem is that they work ok for a layperson understanding, but are fundamentally wrong enough that if you want to understand it at the level of something like virology you'll be lead constantly astray. I dont know of a better recommendation than "w…

It's hard not to draw analogies though. For example, the covid-19 virus's RNA ends with AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA (33 As) which, as someone pointed out, looks suspicially like a "NOP sled"[1] (i.e. so that a protein coming in hot can hit anywhere on the sled and then slide down to the actual information) [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NOP_slide

[deleted]

Re: What's a virus, anyway? The bare-bones basics

#77

Post by 01100011 »

lordnacho wrote: post #45
01100011 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A virus is not a replicator. It is information and a transport system. The machinery of a living cell is the replicator. It seems pretty simple to me: viruses are not living. They are able to co-opt living systems into making more of themselves. A virus may gain life while it is inside of a cell, but why is that any different than the organic molecules which gain life when assembled into a cell? We don't say carbon i…

For something to be a replicator, what does that mean? Surely just that it somehow causes more of itself to be made, and has enough variability to change its descendants. A particular organic molecule like say a simple sugar doesn't fit this, because its structure is always the same. But a DNA strand can actually be any of many similar structures. I think the distinction between what is doing the replication is spuri…

To me, for some thing to be a replicator, that thing must include the machinery for replication. Viruses do not include that machinery. Cellular life does not include the food required to replicate, but it has the information, the machinery, and the mechanisms to gather the required resources. It is, I think, somewhat arbitrary where you draw the distinction, but it seems useful to divide replicators which do not include machinery from those that do. There are probably things which sit on this divide and make it hard to draw a distinction. That's life. It's not required to fit into our mental and linguistic bins I suppose.

Re: What's a virus, anyway? The bare-bones basics

#79

Post by dntbnmpls »

chmaynard wrote: post #47
saagarjha wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure if I understand the reference, if there is one.

It's a reference to Stanley Kubrick's film "2001, A Space Odyssey". After the astronaut began disassembling HAL, HAL became child-like.

And singing the first song ever sung by a computer - Daisy Bell.

Re: What's a virus, anyway? The bare-bones basics

#80

Post by salty_biscuits »

vikramkr wrote: post #70
Retric wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s hard to disagree with what your saying, but analogies are fun. I think the best analogy is DNA is a series of automated assembly lines. The workers, raw materials, and signals to turn sections on or off are separate. Each nucleotide station is called A, T, C, or G and adds a single element at a time to long chains which then get folded up into useful tools. DNA can also be used to manufacture either more stands…

Edit - I'll concede that analogies are absolutely fun haha. They might be useful to come up with when you yourself are trying to better understand something by drawing connections to other things you know and all. But I don't think they're ideal for being taught the subject. And again, for a layperson, analogies are totally fine if you just want a surface level understanding of "oh, mitochondrias are powerhouses of t…

Source code, but pretend there is no error correction and your logic circuit is noisy? (or the details of the error correction are murky)
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