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Cells Talk in a Language That Looks Like Viruses

quantamagazine.org

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Re: Cells Talk in a Language That Looks Like Viruses

#11

Post by mannykannot »

teaspoons wrote: post #2

The idea that viruses are self-contained entities separate from the organisms they infect is an artifact of the human mind's power-saving system of modelling the world in terms of functional-decomposition. Viruses are non-living extraorganism messages crucial as a source of novelty in evolution. Nevertheless, it would be nice to find cures for them.

We need other organisms to synthesize certain vital nutrients (not to mention free oxygen) for us. Does this mean that it is pointless to consider ourselves self-contained entities?

The 'inividualistic' feature of viruses is their genome, which is what gets replicated when they take over a cell, and which is subject to evolution itself, not just an agent in the evolution of 'true' organisms.

Re: Cells Talk in a Language That Looks Like Viruses

#12

Post by heyitsguay »

yread wrote: post #5

It's mindblowing that we can now directly image these vesicles https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4448148/

We can in fact image them in multiple ways! Check out these super high resolution images of vesicles on a cell wall - the honeycomb bits are the vesicles' clathrin cages: https://taraskalab.nhlbi.nih.gov/media/

Re: Cells Talk in a Language That Looks Like Viruses

#13

Post by jdonaldson »

The article describes vesicles as a sort of language, I always thought of them as a cellular routing mechanism.

Whatever they are, I think they're super interesting. I named one of my routing libraries after a related organelle: https://github.com/jdonaldson/golgi

Re: Cells Talk in a Language That Looks Like Viruses

#14

Post by RoyTyrell »

jdonaldson wrote: post #13

The article describes vesicles as a sort of language, I always thought of them as a cellular routing mechanism. Whatever they are, I think they're super interesting. I named one of my routing libraries after a related organelle: https://github.com/jdonaldson/golgi

Similar for me, but they seem like a literal (network) packet than a routing algorithm/system.

Re: Cells Talk in a Language That Looks Like Viruses

#15

Post by RoyTyrell »

neilk wrote: post #10

I’m no biologist but this seems to blow a lot of things wide open. Since these vesicles resemble viruses, is it possible for them to be a form of organism-to-organism communication? Accidental, or intentional? Might there be pathogens that MITM vesicles en route? Rip them open and plant another message inside, and send them along?

> Might there be pathogens that MITM vesicles en route? Rip them open and plant another message inside, and send them along?

Seems like they do something effectively the same. Here's an excerpt from the article:

... retroviruses also drape a second layer over their protein shell by wrapping themselves in pieces of their host’s cell membrane. The host-derived membrane protects the virus from discovery by the immune system

Re: Cells Talk in a Language That Looks Like Viruses

#16

Post by nabla9 »

teaspoons wrote: post #2

The idea that viruses are self-contained entities separate from the organisms they infect is an artifact of the human mind's power-saving system of modelling the world in terms of functional-decomposition. Viruses are non-living extraorganism messages crucial as a source of novelty in evolution. Nevertheless, it would be nice to find cures for them.

It's not an artifact of the human mind.

Organism's genes (and phenotype) that is transmitted sexually are easy to separate from viruses and bacteria. Of course there is some mixing, like retroviruses, but the distinction is not artificial.

Re: Cells Talk in a Language That Looks Like Viruses

#18

Post by jdonaldson »

RoyTyrell wrote: post #14
jdonaldson wrote: post #13

The article describes vesicles as a sort of language, I always thought of them as a cellular routing mechanism. Whatever they are, I think they're super interesting. I named one of my routing libraries after a related organelle: https://github.com/jdonaldson/golgi

Similar for me, but they seem like a literal (network) packet than a routing algorithm/system.

Yeah, in my analogy a vesicle is a special kind of ADT-wrapped result, and the Golgi instance does the routing.

Re: Cells Talk in a Language That Looks Like Viruses

#19

Post by jdonaldson »

jdonaldson wrote: post #18
RoyTyrell wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Similar for me, but they seem like a literal (network) packet than a routing algorithm/system.

Yeah, in my analogy a vesicle is a special kind of ADT-wrapped result, and the Golgi instance does the routing.

Also fwiw I dropped the name vesicle from API and docs because I didn't think anybody would understand the connection. Now I'm inclined to add it back in.

Re: Cells Talk in a Language That Looks Like Viruses

#20

Post by fjsolwmv »

stephengillie wrote: post #4
teaspoons wrote: post #2

The idea that viruses are self-contained entities separate from the organisms they infect is an artifact of the human mind's power-saving system of modelling the world in terms of functional-decomposition. Viruses are non-living extraorganism messages crucial as a source of novelty in evolution. Nevertheless, it would be nice to find cures for them.

It's as though the vesicles are email, and viruses are spam. Previously on HN: 800 million viruses fall onto every square meter of Earth every day. They kill 20% of bacterial life every day. [0] Video simulation of HIV infecting a cell and reproducing. [1] [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16839636 [1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16982396

Vesicles are RPCs, and viruses are... Viruses. That's why informatics stole the word "virus".
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