[lit-ideas] FW: Re: Protect the patents!
- From: "Andy Amago" <aamago@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: "lit-ideas" <lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Fri, 4 Nov 2005 08:29:47 -0500
>
> I'm not a virologist (I read the 50% figure, don't remember where), but I
> do know that viruses are strange things. They're neither dead nor alive.
> They are little bundles of DNA surrounded by a protein coat, and nothing
> more. Their sole "purpose" in life, their reason for being, is to find
> host cells to take over to propagate their own DNA.
Based on a link from the site Andreas sent from the U.S. government,
viruses are actually RNA, the copy-ready form of DNA. There are
metaphysical issues here that I don't get. How can something that is not
alive (it has no cells, no organelles, can't digest, can't respirate,
nothing) be so effective in creating itself and propagating itself? I've
always been impressed with viruses for their undead-ness.
(Transmissibility is also on this site. They are air borne.)
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