What is a Virus? | Breakthrough

less than 1m read

·Nov 11, 2024

Virus is actually just genetic material encased in an envelope, and it actually needs a host like me or you in order for it to infect and continue to produce more copies of itself. So what happens is a virus infects me, let's say, and my immune system starts trying to control that virus. Well, the virus evolves and mutates and changes its genetic material over time to try to outrun my immune system.

So, it's a constant battle between the host and the virus, and basically, they're evolving together, they're co-evolving. Ebola is a filovirus, part of a rare family of viruses transmitted by direct contact with bodily fluids, often blood. By contrast, influenza spreads through droplets sneezed or coughed into the air, which makes it easier to catch.

But unlike most strains of flu, filoviruses kill large percentages of the people they infect, up to 90%. This is why this particular lab may be the most dangerous place on earth; it's dedicated exclusively to testing live samples of Ebola. If just a speck of Ebola virus enters your bloodstream, it can quickly make billions of copies of itself and rip you apart from the inside—a hideous and painful way to die.

David Deutsch: Knowledge Creation and The Human Race, Part 1

Worked example: Approximation with local linearity | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy

View All

How do you build a budget? | Budgeting | Financial Literacy | Khan Academy

In this video, I’m going to show an example of what a budget could look like and how you might want to modify that budget depending on your goals, your wants, your needs, and what you want to save for. So, I’m going to do it on a spreadsheet, but you cou…

Why Do You Make People Look Stupid?

Hey Youtube, you said you wanted to talk. What’s up? Why do you go around making other people look stupid? What do you mean? What’s water made of? Water. Hahaha, what makes water? Water. Ok, what elements does it take to make water? H2O. So what …

Introduction to remainders

We’re already somewhat familiar with the idea of division. If I were to say 8 divided by 2, you could think of that as 8 objects: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Divided into equal groups of two. So how many equal groups of two could you have? Well, you could hav…

How Trees Secretly Talk to Each Other in the Forest | Decoder

Ouch! What do you think you’re doing? The idea of talking trees has been capturing the human imagination for generations. Did you say something? My bark is worse than my bite. Okay, so maybe they don’t talk to us, but it turns out, trees can “talk” to ea…

Rare 1920s Footage: All-Black Towns Living the American Dream | National Geographic

And Oklahoma is a unique space in terms of the number of African-American towns that were established. Some suggest upwards of 50 African-American towns between 1924 and 1928. Reverend S.S. Jones was going around documenting this sort of self-determined, …

After Decades of Brownface, South Asians Fight for Better Representation | National Geographic

Mainstream media has characterized how we see South Asians, whether by romanticizing its biggest country, India, or asserting the model minority stereotype. But it’s not okay, and today South Asian actors and comedians are pushing back. South Asia is mad…

What is a Virus? | Breakthrough

More Articles