Where do real-life viruses come from?

[kevin11951]

Viruses arent alive, there just protein shells that just happen to bump into random stuff (like our cells), or at least this is what i was told in highschool bio.

so, where do (did) they come from?

[Tibuda]

There's a huge debate if viruses are living beings.

[kk0sse54]

Viruses arent alive, there just protein shells that just happen to bump into random stuff (like our cells), or at least this is what i was told in highschool bio.

so, where do (did) they come from?

Nobody is really sure however one of the theories is that they are linked to plasmids another one I think is that they may have evolved from protein and nucleic acid molecules.

[dragos240]

check this (http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/yellowstone/viruslive.html) out, might be useful.

[handy]

They blow in on cosmic dust.

[Grant A.]

Well, it has been discovered that the Human body does create viruses for messenging purposes (Jdong told me this :)), and one theory states that some may have mutated and became harmful. Another theory also says that a cell mutated and a small fragment of DNA and some proteins escaped the cell.

It is widely believed by scientists that viruses did not originate until mid-way through the dinosaurs existence, but either way, this is a heavily debated field.

[SunnyRabbiera]

here:
http://www.giantmicrobes.com/

[CarpKing]

Viruses don't really fossilize so it's hard to tell when they appeared, but many believe that they are rogue bits of DNA and RNA that escaped and began replicating on their own by hijacking the cell's mechanisms. In that sense they may be more "related" to their original host than to each other.

[jdong]

There are some biologists who believe that viruses play a significant symbiotic role both in the evolution of life as we know it today, and in life today -- I believe it's still believed to play a key role in the successful birth of some livestock including sheep. [citation needed, but too lazy]

[etnlIcarus]

There's a huge debate if viruses are living beings."beings", is going a bit too far. No one is arguing that. Rather, there is some debate over whether a virus is alive - mostly because taxonomy relies on largely arbitrary criteria and some feel that we've defined life too narrowly.


There are some biologists who believe that viruses play a significant symbiotic role both in the evolution of life as we know it today, and in life today -- I believe it's still believed to play a key role in the successful birth of some livestock including sheep. [citation needed, but too lazy]

I remember reading that recently. Retroviruses (viruses which have imprinted themselves upon the host's DNA) are believed to be the great underestimated factor in the evolution of life on earth. It's now been discovered that some of the genes necessary for mammalian reproduction and gestation did not entirely evolve through conventional means: for instance, the instruction needed for the production of placental cells was introduced entirely by a foreign virus several million years before the first mammals appeared.

But to answer the OP's question; a virus is virtually indistinguishable from the RNA present in the cells of most lifeforms and many 'loose' fragments of DNA (plasmids) and is also strikingly similar to many organelles. The most likely explanation for their existence is that during the earliest stages of life, before cell division was the refined biological art it is today and RNA still played as big a role in the shape of life as early chains of DNA, a greater number of bi-products and redundant components were produced as a result of the turbulent evolution and growth of these primordial lifeforms. There were also a lot of evolutionary dead-ends, where very basic lifeforms would essentially devolve into something we would not quite define as 'alive'.

These loose-ends actually helped to accelerate the development of life, as many rogue pieces of genetic material (incl some of the earliest, most basic forms of what could roughly be described as 'life') were absorbed and incorporated into larger organisms, resulting in the first complex single-cellular organisms. That's not to say that viruses have been distinct from other lifeforms for roughly 3.5 billion years (if I'm remembering my timeline correctly) but rather, that there is an ongoing relationship between complex life and viruses, which occasionally results in a destructive strain appearing but is mostly a positive symbiotic relationship.

There was an example I wanted to use but the name of the virus escapes me. Around the turn of the 20th century, a retrovirus which had benignly existed within pigs for thousands of years mutated, resulting in a slight change in the structure of it's protein 'shell'. This caused it to jump to humans (humans are only somewhat further removed from pigs than we are apes, thus it doesn't take a huge change for a pig virus to become compatible with human cells), where it wasn't nearly as benign. It resulted in a minor epidemic, I just can't remember the virus' bloody name.

[smbtol]

Viruses can be DNA or RNA based. They may have more or less proteins.
IMHO viruses have evolved with cells since the begining of life on Earth. There are many researchers who think that life started with RNA.
I saw some comments about retroviruses. An article I liked is the following:
http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/12/03/071203fa_fact_specter?currentPage=all

[MaxIBoy]

Ribosomes are the single most important component of a cell; they take RNA and turn it into proteins. Interestingly, the ribosomes themselves are made of RNA, with proteins for protection. Sounds similar to a virus, doesn't it?

[Insane_Homer]

Viruses arent alive, there just protein shells that just happen to bump into random stuff (like our cells), or at least this is what i was told in highschool bio.

so, where do (did) they come from?

one theory is that comets contain enough 'bio' material to cause this...

there was a study showing a correlation between major meteor showers and epidemic outbreaks over the past 2/300 years.

Of course evolution would allow for microbes to mutate, if you look at the sheer numbers of microbes and rate at which they can multiply and mutate then the possibilities are harmful 'virus' mutations is certainly plausible.

There are so many unknown 'species' at the microbial level. There are some good talks on TED.com about this stuff and DNA.

One scientist did a study of a particular part of the ocean (the 1st 20 feet) and triple the number of known species when the samples were sequenced at DNA level!!!

What they teach in school is a bit 'broad', it's also a bit dated. Research at DNA/RNA/protein level has balooned in the past 10-15 years and is accelerating. School literature is based on 20-30 year old theories that are a little dated.

There's a good chance they'll be trying to teach you 'intelligent design' soon (but remember, God only makes a good stuff. The devil 'designes' the bad stuff).

[etnlIcarus]

Honestly, I'm pretty wary of extra-terrestrial explanations for, "bio material". They're almost as bad as intelligent design. Also not sure how you expect viruses completely foreign to earth life to mutate, if they're not ingestible by any earth lifeforms and therefore incapable of replicating, thus mutating.

[MaxIBoy]

As random as they are, viruses are precision machines. They mutate a lot, and most of the mutated viruses die. However, that doesn't doom them, because a lot of the viruses live, and some mutations are beneficial. They evolve through the infinite monkeys theorem. If it weren't for that, the limited room for error would kill them off. While its true that the high degree of mutation is the main reason for the success of viruses, there has to be an existing population of functional viruses to start with. You can't just show up on a comet and mutate into something that can reproduce like a virus, because the mutation process depends on being able to reproduce in the first place. It's like being stuck in space and saying, "No problem! I'll just upgrade my space suit into a starship!" Without the proper tools and raw materials, you're not even going to have the chance to get started before the air runs out. It's theoretically possible to start entirely from scratch, but that will take a long, long time.

If epidemics coincide with major comet collisions, I would suspect that the comets kicked up dust, preventing crops from growing and making people more vulnerable to disease due malnutrition.

[etnlIcarus]

Pretty much what I said.


If epidemics coincide with major comet collisions, I would suspect that the comets kicked up dust, preventing crops from growing and making people more vulnerable to disease due malnutrition.Meteors, not comets. Of course, all this is assuming the correlation is a) strong and b) means anything.

/sarcasm if 300 years ago, people witnessed a major meteor shower, I'd expect them to think it's the end times, have lots of promiscuous sex, thus, outbreak. :p


There are some good talks on TED.com about this stuff and DNA.While ted has some good stuff, it's hardly of the calibre of a well-respected scientific journal (and 15 minute talks hardly constitute a thesis). Edit: For instance, at this year's TED conference, there was both some whackjob using genetics as a platform to spew forth his extreme libertatian political views, as well as some other whackjob (Gates) who unleashed a swarm of mosquitoes on a crowd.

[the8thstar]

Two interesting bits of info here: if yu have a virus in your system, it can never be fully eradicated. Herpes simplex is a very good example.

Second, I recently learned that som viruses predate on other viruses! Insane isn't it? Check this out: http://www2.cnrs.fr/presse/communique/1393.htm.

It's interesting if you consider viruses like Life's idea of sharing DNA across the board, through species and genders.

[MaxIBoy]

Meteors, not comets. Of course, all this is assuming the correlation is a) strong and b) means anything.<mental exercise>
Meteors heat up a lot. I don't think anything could survive in one. A comet leaves a trail of debris behind. While mostly gaseous, it also contains small particles of solid matter. This "comet dandruff" could float down to Earth's surface without being sterilized. Life has been proven to survive when exposed to space (experiments on the Foton M3 satellite.) So why not?
</thought experiment>


/sarcasm if 300 years ago, people witnessed a major meteor shower, I'd expect them to think it's the end times, have lots of promiscuous sex, thus, outbreak. :p Actually, that seems very plausible.

[etnlIcarus]

And thus the mystery of 1709's crabs pandemic is explained. Good work, team.


A comet leaves a trail of debris behind. While mostly gaseous, it also contains small particles of solid matter. This "comet dandruff" could float down to Earth's surface without being sterilized.Larger pieces of rock, depending on their mineral composition (heat conductivity), density, etc aren't necessarily heated > 100 degrees Celsius right through. Smaller particles, assuming similar composition and density, would be. The other problem with smaller particles is they don't provide much protection while in space and it's extremely likely that radiation from the sun would sterilize any smaller debris within a few hours.

[halovivek]

Viruses is also living form. From that only we have derived.

[jespdj]

They blow in on cosmic dust.
That's what some crazy people like Fred Hoyle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle) believe. He thought that the reason why our noses point downwards is because that way virus particles which supposedly rain down on us from space wouldn't fall into our noses... :rolleyes:

I'm not a biology expert. A virus is a simple thing - just some RNA or DNA with a protein shell around it. Given the extraordinary properties of RNA and DNA (self-replication and mutations, leading to the ability to evolve) I can understand how they can evolve into something like a virus: you have a bunch of random RNA or DNA molecules, and some are better at replicating and protecting themselves, and so after some time only the hardy ones survive, and they most hardy ones produce a shell to protect themselves. And voilà, you've got a virus.

Whether you think a virus is alive or not depends on your definition of "life".

[etnlIcarus]

When in actuality our noses point down so we don't drown when it rains. >.>

[Tibuda]

"beings", is going a bit too far. No one is arguing that. Rather, there is some debate over whether a virus is alive - mostly because taxonomy relies on largely arbitrary criteria and some feel that we've defined life too narrowly.Sorry. In my language the literal translation for "living being" is "something that is alive", but I can understand the difference.

[kaspar_silas]

<mental exercise>
Meteors heat up a lot. I don't think anything could survive in one. A comet leaves a trail of debris behind. While mostly gaseous, it also contains small particles of solid matter. This "comet dandruff" could float down to Earth's surface without being sterilized. Life has been proven to survive when exposed to space (experiments on the Foton M3 satellite.) So why not?
</thought experiment>

Meteors actually burn up entirely. Those that hit the ground are meteorites. But their center can be cool enough to avoid sterilization if the meteorite composition is right.

Not sure about the comet dandruff idea. Surely even small particles have to re enter the atmosphere. At the thin outer atmosphere edge there is no air resistance so they don't float down, they come screaming in. So I would imagine they just burn out really high. Plus unless the comet came past very close the time in space would be a few weeks or more so the dose of UV on the journey would be massive. Even a water bear couldn't survive that.

[emshains]

Well, they can't breed independently, if you can call that breeding. They can only copy themselves if they enter a living cell. There is no virus if there is no life. But there can be life with no virus's. But that would be bad for many organisms who have adapted to live with them. Virus's amaze me, because I can't really see their reason to exist, as for living creatures, there is mostly a rational explanation for any characteristic in their anatomy, though not in it's behavior. They can't be here to make living organisms make defense mechanisms, just because it would be a paradox.

[emshains]

Viruses is also living form. From that only we have derived.

Fail.

Take it like this, viruses and cells both are made of proteins. That's where their similarities end. They both evolved their own way. One is a failure, the other- success.

[etnlIcarus]

Well, they can't breed independently, if you can call that breeding. They can only copy themselves if they enter a living cell. There is no virus if there is no life. But there can be life with no virus's. But that would be bad for many organisms who have adapted to live with them. Virus's amaze me, because I can't really see their reason to exist, as for living creatures, there is mostly a rational explanation for any characteristic in their anatomy, though not in it's behavior. They can't be here to make living organisms make defense mechanisms, just because it would be a paradox.


Fail.

Those living in pseudo-philosophical houses shouldn't throw stones.


Well, they can't breed independently, if you can call that breedingThe actual mechanics of how a virus replicates is no different to the division of any asexual single-cellular organism.


They can only copy themselves if they enter a living cell. There is no virus if there is no life. But there can be life with no virus'sThe contention is not over anything like this. Anything which is traditionally characterised as alive is only alive as long as certain environmental factors accommodate it's continued existence; that is to say, all forms of life are dependent upon external organic compounds in order to perpetuate. The resources necessary for a cell to divide in-two don't come from nowhere. Conceptually, a virus is no different; it's dependence upon it's environment just goes a step further.


Virus's amaze me, because I can't really see their reason to exist ... They can't be here to make living organisms make defense mechanisms, just because it would be a paradox.Read back earlier in this thread for your answer.


as for living creatures, there is mostly a rational explanation for any characteristic in their anatomyThis is no different for a virus.


though not in it's behaviorAlmost all behaviour can be accounted for logically. There's easily a half dozen different fields of study into this exact subject.

[Koori23]

I often get confused with the difference between viruses and bacteria.

HIV is a virus I thought. So, someone with HIV is prescribed a cocktail of drugs to cope with that. Over the course of time, the drugs have to be changed or dosages increased because they become ineffective. Is that the Human Body building a resistance or is that the virus mutating and becoming resistant?

Same thing with the Flu. If I get the flu and pass it to someone, their symptoms may be different than mine.

If the Human body is the host of a virus. Is it the Human body that's changing the virus or is it the virus adapting to it's enviroment?

Wouldn't answering that question determine whether or not a virus is "alive"? When you read about viruses, they are grouped into "families", it's almost like they have a family tree so to speak.

I am most certainly a novice when it comes to this sorta stuff. If my questions seem rather elementary.. I apologize.

[etnlIcarus]

HIV is a virus I thought. So, someone with HIV is prescribed a cocktail of drugs to cope with that. Over the course of time, the drugs have to be changed or dosages increased because they become ineffective. Is that the Human Body building a resistance or is that the virus mutating and becoming resistant?HIV attacks the immune system. Treatment doesn't do anything to the virus, it just attempts to fortify the failing immune system of the host. The immunity one builds up to the drugs is simply a normal part of the human body's functioning and how it reacts to any foriegn substances with continued exposure.

That said, a new strain of the HIV virus emerges about every 6 weeks so attempting to develop a treatment which directly deals with the virus is almost impossible.


Same thing with the Flu. If I get the flu and pass it to someone, their symptoms may be different than mine. Depends on the degree of infection, level of resistance/prior antibodies* and genetic differences between individuals altering the body's natural immunity to certain viruses.

That last bit is probably the most important bit; the sexual reproductive method creates far more genetic variability within any given species. In the same way that the HIV virus, which was originally transmitted from some of our ape relatives, has a much lower fatality rate amongst apes; the genetic difference between you and someone you're not closely related to creates a natural challenge for virii, which may alter symptoms, severity or, in a very small number of people, offer immunity.

Also important to note is influenza mutates a couple of times a year. It's also possible that if you and your neighbour got the virus from different sources, you could be suffering from different strains.

*should also mention that antibodies can be passed from generation to generation. Doesn't always happen, otherwise most people wouldn't get the chicken pox (which is a virus that mutates quite slowly) but a lot of basic antibodies are passed from mother to child during gestation and breast feeding. This can also lead to different people having different levels of resistance, depending on ancestral exposure (eg isolated aboriginal populations, when first exposed to the cold virus, are often devastated as they received no antibodies from their ancestors as their ancestors were never exposed to the virus).

If the Human body is the host of a virus. Is it the Human body that's changing the virus or is it the virus adapting to it's enviroment?Can happen either way, though it usually occurs from the host-end. One individual manages to find a way to cope with the virus without being able to eliminate it; they can still infect others, who probably lack the ability to cope with it. If the virus mutates to become less destructive to it's host, it may be able to successfully exist within a population perpetually.


I am most certainly a novice when it comes to this sorta stuff. If my questions seem rather elementary.. I apologize.Your questions were in them-self smarter than most of the comments in this thread.

[jespdj]

I often get confused with the difference between viruses and bacteria.
Viruses (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virus) and bacteria (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacteria) are two toally different things.

A virus is not much more than an RNA or DNA molecule with a coat of protein, while bacteria are single-celled organisms, much more complicated than viruses.

[mister_pink]

Haven't read the thread, but anyway:

Virii are not alive. This does not mean that they can't evolve though. Many other things can be shown or modelled to "evolve" by some other form of selection, they don't have to be alive.

Anyway, surely the more interesting question is: We are "alive" (by our own definition), so where did we come from?

[etnlIcarus]

From the FSM's noodley appendage, of course.

[MikeTheC]

I've always wondered myself about viruses, but more from the standpoint of what their function within the global ecology was.

[MaxIBoy]

Viruses are very useful.




As mentioned before, they can mix your DNA up (which is usually a Bad Thing, but sometimes it helps.) Whenever a species gets too populous, emergent diseases help keep them from getting too far out of check (which is happening to people in a lot of the more crowded cities.)




Also, viruses can cure cancer.


Normal cells have a method for detecting when things aren't right. If a cell detects this, it will either check to see if its own DNA can be repaired to fix the problem, or trigger apoptosis on itself. Most potential cancer cells either fix themselves or kill themselves using this process. However, if this process itself is damaged, that's bad. If, at some future date, the cell mutates again, it won't be able to detect the mutation and repair itself/self-destruct. This is one of the prerequisites of cancer.

Sometimes, the cell can use this process to defend itself from the virus without the immune system getting involved. This mechanism probably evolved millions of years ago, because there are basically no viruses "in the wild" that are significantly vulnerable to it. Viruses won the arms race.

However, some viruses don't have 100% bulletproof defenses against this mechanism. Furthermore, you can genetically engineer a virus that will be defeated by this mechanism 100% of the time. The result is that if you infect yourself with such a virus, your normal healthy cells will be able to fight the virus easily, and the cancer cells will be fair game.

The only side-affects are that you get a head cold during the treatment. Also, it'll cost you an arm and a leg. Also, if it doesn't work the first time, you're screwed, because you'll be immune to it and it won't work again.

Such a genetically engineered virus already exists:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Onyx-15

[phrostbyte]

A lot of people believe that an organism must have DNA and RNA to be alive, and viruses have either DNA or RNA, but not both. So they consider them non-living. There are infectious agents that are even simpler then viruses, like mutated proteins called prions.

[kk0sse54]

A lot of people believe that an organism must have DNA and RNA to be alive, and viruses have either DNA or RNA, but not both. So they consider them non-living. There are infectious agents that are even simpler then viruses, like mutated proteins called prions.

Thank god prions are rarer than viruses since due to their abilities such as to convert other protein molecules into prions I'd say they are much more deadly.

[etnlIcarus]

A lot of people believe that an organism must have DNA and RNA to be aliveWell that's some rather odd thinking since life isn't dependent upon both and the earliest lifeforms aren't even believed to have had DNA, let alone to have used it constructively for sometime after that.

[jespdj]

Thank god prions are rarer than viruses since due to their abilities such as to convert other protein molecules into prions I'd say they are much more deadly.
Prions (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prion) are what cause Creutzfeld-Jacob disease and mad cow disease, and they are really strange. Prions are proteins, that have the same chemical composition as proteins that your body makes, but prions are folded differently, which makes them do things that harm your body. The bad thing is that if you have prions in your body, they will cause the normal proteins in your body to fold the wrong way and also become prions. So they reproduce in a way - but nobody would call prions alive.

[kaspar_silas]

HIV attacks the immune system. Treatment doesn't do anything to the virus, it just attempts to fortify the failing immune system of the host. The immunity one builds up to the drugs is simply a normal part of the human body's functioning and how it reacts to any foriegn substances with continued exposure.


By the treatment I presume you mean "Highly Active Anti-Retroviral Treatment" or HAART. This as the name suggests actually does work on the virus. The specific drugs in the prescribed combination work in different ways but basically they all act to attempt to stop retro viruses replicating. The immune system is strengthened but this is the effect of stopping the virus destroying the white blood cells.

See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antiretroviral_drug



That said, a new strain of the HIV virus emerges about every 6 weeks so attempting to develop a treatment which directly deals with the virus is almost impossible.


Secondly as the article also points out the viral resistance does indeed arise from viral mutations. The astonishing rate is due to a lack of error checking enzymes and the natural selection pressure of the drugs. The resistance has nothing to do with the body developing a reaction to the drugs.

This constant evolution means you can't say things like a new strain arises every few weeks. No viral evolution works like that. New features might be detected every few months but the changes are always incremental and may just occur day to day (thou with lower likeihood). Nether the flu nor HIV nor any viral strain can randomly jump to a new virus.

So you can develop drug to tackle. Is why HAART can be used on all HIV patients unless their specific virus develops resistance. And the constant viral changes mean that drug holidays and the like can re-sensitize the virus.

[etnlIcarus]

Wow, I need to update my reading. I stand broadly corrected.

The resistance has nothing to do with the body developing a reaction to the drugs. Nothing significant but certainly not nothing.

This constant evolution means you can't say things like a new strain arises every few weeks. No viral evolution works like that. New features might be detected every few months but the changes are always incremental and may just occur day to day (thou with lower likeihood). Nether the flu nor HIV nor any viral strain can randomly jump to a new virus.It's got little to do with how evolution functions, as a matter of necessity in research and development is the requirement for progressive taxonomic distinctions in virology. Wherever there is significant resistance or a change in behaviour, they don't simply refer to an entire clade but rather, individual strains. As of a couple of years ago at least, researchers were still classifying distinct emergent strains of the HIV virus every one to two months. Comparatively several strains of influenza are designated yearly.

[hello_kitty]

That article didn't seem to answer the underlying question of whether or not viruses are alive, but it was intriguing nonetheless.

[hello_kitty]

check this (http://serc.carleton.edu/microbelife/yellowstone/viruslive.html) out, might be useful.

That article didn't seem to answer the underlying question of whether or not viruses are alive, but it was intriguing nonetheless.

[tom66]

One thing that confuses me is why the virus kills (or tries to) its host. Why not just become a leech and nibble away slowly, so that the host doesn't die (and maybe doesn't even notice). If the virus kills the host, then said host no longer becomes a stable environment for viruses to thrive.

[kaspar_silas]

It's got little to do with how evolution functions, as a matter of necessity in research and development is the requirement for progressive taxonomic distinctions in virology. Wherever there is significant resistance or a change in behaviour, they don't simply refer to an entire clade but rather, individual strains. As of a couple of years ago at least, researchers were still classifying distinct emergent strains of the HIV virus every one to two months. Comparatively several strains of influenza are designated yearly.

Fair enough, I didn't get you were talking about taxonomic distinctions. I thought you meant there were distinct jumps at regular intervals, my mistake.

O in regards to the point above. What you are saying is true. Selection pressure and viruses, especially very deadly viruses, often do slowly evolve into less lethal strains. see:
http://health.dailynewscentral.com/content/view/0001716/81/

[73ckn797]

They(viruses) are an excuse for doctors when they cannot figure out what ails you.

I have been saying it for years:
When a doctor cannot figure it out, he blames it on a virus.
When a mechanic cannot figure it out, he blames it on bad gasoline.

BTW: I was a mechanic 20 years!!

[etnlIcarus]

One thing that confuses me is why the virus kills (or tries to) its host. Why not just become a leech and nibble away slowly, so that the host doesn't die (and maybe doesn't even notice). If the virus kills the host, then said host no longer becomes a stable environment for viruses to thrive.A virus doesn't try to do anything, to be literal. Generally, when a virus is particularly deadly, it's sealing it's own future as well. Any virus which negatively impacts it's host has to be balanced in terms of contagiousness, deadliness, how quickly it begins replicating/how quickly it mutates and the period between infection and when symptoms appear (I forget the correct term for this) if it's to avoid the extinction of it's host and itself.


Fair enough, I didn't get you were talking about taxonomic distinctions. I thought you meant their were distinct jumps at regular intervals, my mistake.
Thanks for the reading material. It's been a long time since I've done any reading on HIV and AIDS. I thought maybe I would be a little bit off but damn, I don't know what the hell I'm talking about. :p

[the8thstar]

Motto of the prion : "We don't die, we multiply!"

[MikeTheC]

Sounds like viruses basically fundamentally work against their own good, then.

Stupid viruses.

Wait a minute. Is stupidity itself a virus? The reason I ask is I have had any number of customers over the years who've functioned or behaved in much the same way as a virus, and generally with the same kind of outcome.

Mmmm... Coincidence? I think not!!!

[etnlIcarus]

Sounds like viruses basically fundamentally work against their own good, then.

If that were the case they'd be extremely rare, if not extinct. Bad virii (or at least virii bad enough to be noticeable) tend to be more the exception, than the rule.