More on viruses... resources

Something about viruses that makes them quite interesting is how they can only survive when there are cells they can infect. They cannot live on their own and so survive through using cells of living organisms. This makes them so powerful because they attack the fundamental structure of a human body: the cells.

Some great resources and articles on the topic:


Virus or Parasite

An article on how much humans are compared to viruses and the promise of it becoming instead a symbiotic parasite.

Even Viruses Catch Viruses

Aha! Fierce fight of the most apt.

Viruses, the Unknown Frontier

A high school student's still to come research on viruses. Useful on its simplicity to explain what a virus is and how it reproduces.

And of course... wikipedia on viruses, cytokine storm, influenza

The universe inside - thoughts and emotions aside

I've been a little sick. Nothing too important, but a hassle when you are traveling, which I have been. Suddenly there is no energy to do what you want and your body claims rest, rest, rest.

On the other hand this has become such an opportunity and a fascinating way of delving into the physical body. The sense that there is something in the body trying to work out itself, trying to come back to balance. A fight that goes on between the good little bits and the not so good ones.

There is so much to see in regards to the physical body. Most of it remains unseen, unnoticed.

Isn't it amazing that all the time there is something going on inside us - thoughts and emotions aside? There is something happening to every single person in this planet: all these interactions happening in our cells to hold some structure that allow us to think that we are individuals... And we are vaguely aware of it. We go on, doing our thing, living our lives and these systems working their magic in the background. Unless something goes wrong, we don't have to think about how to breathe, how to send the air to the lungs and then tell the blood how to extract the CO2; we don't have to think about extracting the nutrients from our food (if any) and send them around to be optimized; we don't have to tell our left leg 'move after the right', so we can walk....

It's just amazing. There is a universe happening inside every second. Movements in all sorts of ways doing all sorts of things with such precision (most of the time) and wisdom. How is this possible?

Wow.