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Related: About this forum"We Need to Think More about Viruses"
You are a bustling, booming ecosystem that never sleeps. Right nowon the surface of your body, in pores, creases, and folds of skin, and even deep inside of youlive trillions of creatures. Some are just along for the rent-free ride, some help you in crucial ways, and a few may be harming you. Everywhere you go, a unique cloud surrounds you as you shed an organic fog of these beings. Much like the Earth, a planet saturated with abundant and diverse life, you are less of an individual than a conglomerate. Your personal existence, only vaguely outlined by your physical body, is a complex and interdependent coalition of human cells, bacteria, fungi, archaea, and eukaryotes. But even all this is far from a complete picturefor both the Earth and you. Something else is interacting with, influencing, and engineering your ecosystem and all others. Its viruseslots and lots of viruses. They profoundly shape your life and the living world around you.
We all can stand to learn a little more about viruses. These things matter far too much to be omitted from anyones worldview and even demand inclusion when it comes to our self-perception. I suspect that most people probably imagine a few flu viruses lurking on a doorknob, maybe a couple of cold viruses drifting about the room on puffs of air, and thats about it. But the reality is that we are constantly swimming within a thick, endless sea of viruses. They are everywhere, always. Though viruses do not qualify as living creatures, I included substantial attention to them in a chapter about life in my book, At Least Know This: Essential Science to Enhance Your Life, because they share such a long and tangled relationship with life. I am awestruck by them. They do so many things that most people are unaware of. For example, viruses are such a powerful and regulating presence in the microbial world, especially in the ocean, that they are now known to be a major influence on global climate.
Their relentless assault on and delicate coexistence with various lifeforms means that viruses direct many of the brooks, eddies, currents, and rivers of evolution. By infecting, changing, and killing life, they have been unintelligent and indifferent directors of natural history for billions of years. One can hardly overstate the significance of this. Without viruses, the natural world we know and depend on today would notcould notexist in anything close to present form and function. It is even possible that there would never have even been any life here at all if not for viruses. Some 4 billion years ago they may have been precursors to the first cells and served as the critical bridge between nonlife and life.
Viruses are natures emotionless and tireless nanobots. Lifeless packets of chemicals they may be, but, like tiny Terminators, they keep coming and coming, hijacking and controlling lifeforms toward their own ends. Their ubiquitous presence, effectiveness, and incomprehensible numbers easily make them one of the most consequential natural forces on Earth. We live in their immense shadow every moment of our lives.
"Viruses are such a powerful and regulating presence in the microbial world, especially in the ocean, that they are now known to be a major influence on global climate."
We all can stand to learn a little more about viruses. These things matter far too much to be omitted from anyones worldview and even demand inclusion when it comes to our self-perception. I suspect that most people probably imagine a few flu viruses lurking on a doorknob, maybe a couple of cold viruses drifting about the room on puffs of air, and thats about it. But the reality is that we are constantly swimming within a thick, endless sea of viruses. They are everywhere, always. Though viruses do not qualify as living creatures, I included substantial attention to them in a chapter about life in my book, At Least Know This: Essential Science to Enhance Your Life, because they share such a long and tangled relationship with life. I am awestruck by them. They do so many things that most people are unaware of. For example, viruses are such a powerful and regulating presence in the microbial world, especially in the ocean, that they are now known to be a major influence on global climate.
Their relentless assault on and delicate coexistence with various lifeforms means that viruses direct many of the brooks, eddies, currents, and rivers of evolution. By infecting, changing, and killing life, they have been unintelligent and indifferent directors of natural history for billions of years. One can hardly overstate the significance of this. Without viruses, the natural world we know and depend on today would notcould notexist in anything close to present form and function. It is even possible that there would never have even been any life here at all if not for viruses. Some 4 billion years ago they may have been precursors to the first cells and served as the critical bridge between nonlife and life.
Viruses are natures emotionless and tireless nanobots. Lifeless packets of chemicals they may be, but, like tiny Terminators, they keep coming and coming, hijacking and controlling lifeforms toward their own ends. Their ubiquitous presence, effectiveness, and incomprehensible numbers easily make them one of the most consequential natural forces on Earth. We live in their immense shadow every moment of our lives.
"There are 10 million times more viruses in the ocean than stars in the entire known universe. It's clear that their game plan is working."
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/about-thinking/201811/we-need-think-more-about-viruses?fbclid=IwAR0InxTTTe-tkxS5crFFnfjfxnAPmR_gu8vNlrD3to4q0l8805pcP79iSgw
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"We Need to Think More about Viruses" (Original Post)
JHan
Nov 2018
OP
byronius
(7,401 posts)2. Laurie Garrett's The Coming Plague blew my mind.
The microbial world rules us. We should focus.