Viruses: Complex Molecules or Simple Life Forms?
Viruses have been defined as "entities whose genomes are elements of nucleic acid that replicate inside living cells using the cellular synthetic machinery, and cause the synthesis of specialised elements that can transfer the genome to other cells." They are stationaryand are unable to grow. Because of all these factors, it is debatable whether viruses are the most complex of molecules or the simplest life forms. While the definition of living organisms must be adapted, the majority of evidence leads to the classification of viruses as living organisms.
Viruses are composed of a nucleic acid core, a protein capsid, and occasionally a membraneous envelope. The nucleic acid core is composed of either DNA or in the case of retroviruses, RNA, but never both. In retroviruses, the RNA gets transcribed to DNA bye the enzyme reverse transcriptase. The protein capsid is a protein layer that wraps around the virus. There are four basic shapes of viruses. The tobacco mosiac, adenovirus, influenza virus, and t-even bacteriophage are each examples of a different virus structure. Each individual protein subunit composing the capsid is a capsomere.
The tobacco mosiac virus has a helical capsoid and is rod shaped. The adenovirus is polyhedral and has a protein spike at each vertex. The influenza virus is made of a flexible, helecal capsid. It has an outer membranous enevelope that is covered with glycoprotein spikes. The T-even bacteriophage consists of a polyhedral head and a tail. The tail is used to inject DNA into a bacterium while the head stores the DNA.
Basic life is defined as the simplest form capable of displaying the most essential attributes of a living thing. This makes the only real criterion for life the ability to replicate. Only systems containing nucleic acids are capable of this phenomenon. With this reasoning, a better definition is the unit element of a continuous lineage with an individual evolutionary history.
Because of viruses inability to survive when not in a host, they must have evolved from other forms of life. The origin of viruses is an easy thing to theorize about so many hypothesese have been made.
One such hypothesis is that viruses were once complete living parasites.
Over time they have lost all other cellular components. This is backed up by the idea that all cells degenerate over time.
Some people think along very similar lines that viruses are representatives of an early "nearly living" stage of life. This goes along with the first hypothesis in that it accounts for a loss of components. All creatures that become parasitic can be seen losing their obsolete functions and
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This presents a potent example. With a pathogen like a cold, generation time is short, mutation rates are high, and genetic information can spread rapidly through a population. Therefore, evolution (a shift in gene frequencies within a population through time) can occur in weeks (as opposed to the slower pace most commonly associated with evolution). Evolution occurs via natural selection. Pathogens meet the requirements of natural selection by having variability of heritable traits which impact their reproductive success in comparison to others in the population. Consider the heritable and highly variable trait of virulence. Evolution predicts that those pathogens with high virulence must also have successful transmission when their host is
There are many reasons why you should know the differences and similarities between viruses, bacteria, and prions. With this knowledge, you can determine how to make yourself feel better if you are sick, or how to prevent getting sick in the first place. This being said, there are many similarities and differences between these three.
What are microorganisms? They are organisms that you have to view with a microscope. The three that I will be discussing are bacteria, viruses, and prions. Of the three, a bacterium is the only one that can be helpful to us in many situations, and they are also the most diverse organism on the earth. The structure, reproduction, and the diseases bacteria, viruses, and prion cause are all different. Let’s begin to compare these microorganisms.
Since the beginning billions of years ago when God reached down and fused the base elements of life into a single-cell organism, that's how long this process has been taking place. As the amoeba of life spread to different parts of a world that was just beginning to take shape, it encountered different challenges for survival, the cells that couldn't survive died and the one or two mutated cells that could survive continued, multiplying and dominating each particular environment.
Raymo uses for this is DNA and its ability to reproduce itself. This tiny double-helix
Even though AIDS is heavily researched, its origin still remains a partial mystery. It is know that HIV is a zoonosis, a human disease acquired from animals. The virus evolved from a Simian Immunodeficiency Virus (SIV): a type of slow virus found naturally in monkeys and apes which, while not harming the host, produces diseases in other primates (Caldwell 97).
Y. H. LI, CHEN S. P et al. Evolutionary History of Ebola Virus (serial online). 2014; 142 (1-1138). Available from: Academic Search Complete, Ipswich, MA. Accessed May 13, 2014.
The first main idea is: the process of evolution drives the diversity of life. Obviously, the Ebola virus had to evolve. The Ebola virus is made up of RNA and another virus. When the virus replicates, the virus genome will most likely change as well. More changes to the virus are often found when a virus crosses from one species to another.
Watson, J. D., Gilman, M., Witkowski, J., Zoller, M. (1992). Recombinant DNA. New York: W. H. Freeman and Company.
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Viruses have emerged as causes of foodborne disease, according to data compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Viruses cause a wide range of diseases in plants, animals and humans. These infections do not occur at random: each group of viruses has its own typical host range and cell preference. Viruses were probably always a cause of food borne disease; however with recent developments in detection we are now able to confirm the presence of viruses. Previously, those outbreaks may have been recorded as having an unknown causative agent.
Evolution views life to be a process by which organisms diversified from earlier forms, whereas creation illustrates that life was created by a supernatural being. Creation and evolution both agree on the existence of microevolution and the resemblance of apes and humans but vary in terms of interpreting the origins of the life from a historical standpoint. A concept known as Faith Vs Fact comprehensively summarizes the tone of this debate, which leads to the question of how life began. While creation represents a religious understanding of life, evolution acknowledges a scientific interpretation of the origins of life. The theory is illustrated as the process by which organisms change species over time.
How life originated on earth is a question that people have wondered for ages. One possibility that answer this brilliant question is the panspermia theory, which suggests that life on earth originated thanks to the contribution of cosmic beings that come from any point in the universe. This hypothesis does not speak of organisms ranging in meteorites moving through the universe to the Earth to conquer it, but it speaks of complex chemical substances which had been formed earlier from the origins of the universe, which reached the earth at any given time.
With this information, of which is all theoretically possible, we now have a zombie that passes the principles of a zombie.The medical science involved has now proven that zombies are possible.Have fun and do not create this unless you want to be responsible for the mass genocide of the human race.