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Hip · 11-03-2008, 03:34 PM

Many thanks JamesB for your suggestion on a communicable fungal pathogens, namely ringworm.

However, the mystery bug I caught is definitely something else. The full clinical symptoms are found on my site here: chronicsorethroat wordpress com (just put in the dots yourself).

It is quite possibly a new pathogen. My guess is it this might be a new virus from the influenza A genus, or perhaps the enterovirus genus.

I fully agree with your point on Transduction (the natural process where bacteriophage viruses inject new genetic information packages into bacteria, thereby helping them to evolve and survive).

My point is that in higher multicellular life forms (such human, animal, plant, etc), viruses are an outdated mode of conveying genetic information, a legacy from the world of unicellular organisms such as bacteria. When nature invented sex as a means to spread genetic material around in higher life forms, the evolutionary role of the virus - which was (and still is) vital for unicellular organism evolution - suddenly becomes not only unhelpful, but in fact rather pernicious for animal and plant survival.

It's high time we left this ancient system of viral genetic injection behind, now that we have sex as our gene injection system. Except of course when we use viral vectors under controlled conditions, such as introducing new genetic packages into our body's cells for gene therapy.

I don't know of any circumstances where a human virus is of any benefit to the human being (with the exception of herpes simplex perhaps, which although it appears to help precipitate Alzheimer's disease, apparently also confers protection against the Bubonic Plague - well, in mice at least).

Random injections of genes into lower unicellular life forms may be nature's ingenuous way of widening the gene pool for the benefit of these unicellular creatures; for unicellular life forms, this transduction is an effective means of rapid evolutionary adaptation.

But for higher life forms such as us, random viral injections of genes into our cells frequently screws up our metabolisms.

It is just a question of whether we are clever enough to do something about eliminating this ancient legacy system of evolution - the viral conveyance of genes - from messing with the human metabolism.

11-03-2008, 03:34 PM	#24 (permalink)
Hip Upright	Many thanks JamesB for your suggestion on a communicable fungal pathogens, namely ringworm. However, the mystery bug I caught is definitely something else. The full clinical symptoms are found on my site here: chronicsorethroat wordpress com (just put in the dots yourself). It is quite possibly a new pathogen. My guess is it this might be a new virus from the influenza A genus, or perhaps the enterovirus genus. I fully agree with your point on Transduction (the natural process where bacteriophage viruses inject new genetic information packages into bacteria, thereby helping them to evolve and survive). My point is that in higher multicellular life forms (such human, animal, plant, etc), viruses are an outdated mode of conveying genetic information, a legacy from the world of unicellular organisms such as bacteria. When nature invented sex as a means to spread genetic material around in higher life forms, the evolutionary role of the virus - which was (and still is) vital for unicellular organism evolution - suddenly becomes not only unhelpful, but in fact rather pernicious for animal and plant survival. It's high time we left this ancient system of viral genetic injection behind, now that we have sex as our gene injection system. Except of course when we use viral vectors under controlled conditions, such as introducing new genetic packages into our body's cells for gene therapy. I don't know of any circumstances where a human virus is of any benefit to the human being (with the exception of herpes simplex perhaps, which although it appears to help precipitate Alzheimer's disease, apparently also confers protection against the Bubonic Plague - well, in mice at least). Random injections of genes into lower unicellular life forms may be nature's ingenuous way of widening the gene pool for the benefit of these unicellular creatures; for unicellular life forms, this transduction is an effective means of rapid evolutionary adaptation. But for higher life forms such as us, random viral injections of genes into our cells frequently screws up our metabolisms. It is just a question of whether we are clever enough to do something about eliminating this ancient legacy system of evolution - the viral conveyance of genes - from messing with the human metabolism. Last edited by Hip; 11-03-2008 at 05:31 PM..