

Geometry of the structure of viruses [pdf] - washedup
http://www.liga.ens.fr/~deza/Sem-FullCCirmVirusSpFull/VirusConf.pdf

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traskjd
Great read. I'd recently been discussing with friends the point raised on
slide #29 - "Are viruses evolve toward benignity (not eradicate their hosts)?"

General thinking - if a virus was actually beneficial to the host, surely the
host would seek it out? I recall reading an article many years ago that
mentioned that uncooked red-meat infected most of the population with a virus
that subtly slowed reaction times. Flip that around and think about the
adoption if there was a virus that improved reaction times.

I'm certainly no expert in the area - just fun to think about if things
evolved that way.

This type of thinking can be extended everywhere too. What if the ASK toolbar
actually made Chrome faster? Would you install it? ;-)

Enjoyable presentation & certainly made me want to find a book that would
educate me on some of the terms used since I'm no expert. Appreciated that
some parts where in simple terms.

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gone35
You are definitely on the right track: biologists call that (viral
mutualistic) symbiosis. Check out [1,2, _inter alia_ ].

[1]
[http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/journal/v9/n2/full/nrmicro2491...](http://www.nature.com/nrmicro/journal/v9/n2/full/nrmicro2491.html)

[2]
[http://jmm.sgmjournals.org/content/58/4/531.full](http://jmm.sgmjournals.org/content/58/4/531.full)

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traskjd
Thank you for the links :-)

