
Trillions of Viruses Fall from the Sky Each Day - aaronbrethorst
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/science/virosphere-evolution.html
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cowboysauce
>One study estimated that viruses in the ocean cause a trillion trillion
infections every second, destroying some 20 percent of all bacterial cells in
the sea daily.

That excerpt really put it into perspective for me. I guess I always thought
that viruses didn't have much of an impact, aside from ocasionally causing a
pandemic and incorporating themselves into our genome. But the thought of
viruses killing a fifth of all bacteria in the sea everyday is staggering.

~~~
ams6110
One would assume the reproduction rate of the bacteria is sufficient to make
this sustainable.

~~~
fipple
Yes, in the lab, bacteria can double in less than an hour.

~~~
janekm
Also in the kitchen.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Yes, kitchen is a half-assed organic chemistry lab for doing what's basically
alchemy.

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curlcntr
I saw this quote in Nature last year [1]

"Viruses outnumber prokaryotes by ten to one and are said to kill half of the
world's bacteria every two days"

Maybe these two are locked in some sort of existential battle for Earth while
everything else is a side show?

[1] H. Ledford, "Five big mysteries about CRISPR’s origins", Nature, 12
January 2017. Volume 541 Number 7637

~~~
erikpukinskis
Viruses are fundamentally smaller than bacteria, so they’re not really
competitors in the zero-sum sense.

Saying they are in an existential battle is like saying birds and insects are
in an existential battle. They might kill each other and occupy the same
physical space, but one can’t really replace the other in the fitness
landscape.

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imcoconut
> (There is a small group of researchers who believe viruses may even have
> come here from outer space, an idea known as panspermia.)

Fred Hoyle [1] is one such researcher. He is an astrophysicist who was the
first to demonstrate how elements heavier than helium are synthesized by
nuclear reactions in stellar cores. He holds a number of non-mainstream
scientific beliefs and one involves the source and evolution of life on earth.
He discusses it, along with other evidence challenging the neo-darwinian
theory of evolution [2], in "The Intelligent Universe" [3]. I'm reading it now
and highly recommend it.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle)
[2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_synthesis_(20th_century...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_synthesis_\(20th_century\))
[3] [https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Universe-Fred-
Hoyle/dp/00...](https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Universe-Fred-
Hoyle/dp/0030700833)

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mikeash
This is a rare example of extreme understatement in a headline. If the figure
given in the article is true, about 800 trillion viruses fall to Earth each
day _per square kilometer_.

~~~
andai
_Hundreds of Sextillions of Viruses Fall from the Sky Each Day_

~~~
mikeash
Doesn't quite have the same ring to it, huh? I think they probably made the
right decision to understate it here.

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justinator
I guess the layman's followup question (if I may) is, why didn't something
like Smallpox spread over to the Americas, if viruses are that prevalent? Why
did they need a human host? Is there a specific evolutionary niche to not
being infectious via the air?

~~~
knappa
I would think that the virii that have that kind of prevalence are mostly
bacteriophages.

~~~
keithwhor
This is the correct answer.

Viruses are also very specialized molecular machinery, and eukaryotic cells
(and by extension, organisms) are quite complex. Think of molecular evolution
between viruses v. prokaryotes / eukaryotes like a constant arms race: viruses
have the "key" to (1) enter a cell and (2) hijack cellular machinery, and
prokaryotes / eukaryotes are constantly upgrading their locks (mostly as a
factor of diversity x natural selection --- the cells without great locks tend
to be terminated rather quickly).

Also consider that it's not in a virus' "best interest" (from a sustainability
/ propagative standpoint) to actually _kill_ or even _incapacitate_ 100% of
their hosts, which contradicts their very mode of replication (often
completely hijacking transcription and translation mechanisms in a cell,
leading to lysis). They rely on these hosts to survive --- a 100% termination
rate of the host means an evolutionary dead-end for a virus.

Arguably, the most "successful" viruses are ones that have been incorporated
into host DNA - it's estimated that up to 8% of our genome consists of
endogenous retrovirus DNA [1]. After all, viruses are simply small containers
of self-replicative material (DNA / RNA, a few proteins) surrounded by a
protein coat: if they can hijack their own environmental shield (like, say, a
full human nucleus / cell) and still propagate their DNA they've arguably
"won."

So --- yeah, harmful virulence is (1) tough to achieve and (2) not actually
all that evolutionarily advantageous.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus)

~~~
sitkack
How much genetic complexity exists just to thwart viruses?

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SubiculumCode
The possibility that viruses can benefit a host or cellular species is
interesting. I have wondered whether the common cold virus(es) may impart some
benefit to humans? Are we symbiotic with mutualism?

Could they provide some defense or warning against other diseases in the
environment? Just speculating.

~~~
saalweachter
Depressing facts of evolution time.

Evolution will totally evolve systems where something is both necessary for
the system to keep function and detrimental to the system. If you evolve in
the context of "there are tons of viruses just all over the goddamn place",
even if the viruses are constantly harming you, there is no reason your body
shouldn't come to depend on them for some functions. Eg, the amino acids
liberated from your immune system breaking them down could be a vital
precursor to some protein or another, _even as they continue to hurt you_.

For a computer example, imagine writing programs to run on a computer that
suffers frequent, intermittent power failures. You could very easily end up
with a program with memory leaks that don't matter because the power failures
happen too frequently for enough memory to leak for it to be a problem. The
frequent power failures are _bad_ , and you would prefer to eliminate them,
but you can't because the program has evolved in the context of frequent power
failures and can't run for long without them (hell, maybe the memory leaks
will end up corrupting on-disk data if you fill up main memory and your hacky
memory management system begins double-allocating).

~~~
kortex
Brilliant analogy. Especially when you consider how heavily nature conserves
and multi-utilizes molecules and structures, it's not much of a stretch to see
how what starts as a side effect can quickly become an essential machination.

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chiefalchemist
Having just read this article, how might this virus activity be tracked /
measured back in time?

If viruses and bacteria are the forerunners of more complex life, wouldn't
this be helpful to know?

[https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/are-
we-e...](https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/are-we-earths-
only-civilization/557180/)

------
sbhn
Someone should quickly tell the king that the sky is falling down

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RobertRoberts
Why does this feel a little like fear-mongering?

George Carlin on germs, really funny stuff.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnmMNdiCz_s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnmMNdiCz_s)

~~~
ItsMe000001
You should have read more than the headline before commenting.

~~~
RobertRoberts
Let me rephrase then:

"Why does this _headline_ feel a little like fear-mongering?"

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ItsMe000001
Unless you have an (irrational exclusive) association of "virus =
bad/fear/disease" to begin with the headline is perfectly fine. It's just your
interpretation made by adding your own context. You should try to separate
what is actually there from what you yourself add. It's a statement of fact
that sounds interesting and that's all, and unlike what the other person said
it's not very "click baity", it actually is a pretty accurate description of
the main point.

~~~
RobertRoberts
No virus that I have ever had, or heard of anyone having, was ever called
"good".

I'm literally stunned this isn't common sense.

To prove me wrong, please show me any everyday circumstance an average person
from the past 50 years would have had a good experience with a virus.

~~~
ItsMe000001
You should read the article and take a course in biology. Coursera and even
more so edX.org offer excellent free courses.

To you last sentence: The fact that you exist. Viruses contributed
significantly. _If you had read the article(!)_ you would already have been
told about that, including examples.

For example, quoting the article:

 _> Researchers recently identified an ancient virus that inserted its DNA
into the genomes of four-limbed animals that were human ancestors. That
snippet of genetic code, called ARC, is part of the nervous system of modern
humans and plays a role in human consciousness — nerve communication, memory
formation and higher-order thinking. Between 40 percent and 80 percent of the
human genome may be linked to ancient viral invasions._

It bothers me that there are people on HN that keep commenting while
completely disregarding the article that is being discussed.

~~~
RobertRoberts
> _You should read the article and take a course in biology._

You have proved my point for me. The everyday person has never once in their
life, ever, heard that viruses are good.

I'm an educated and well read, and I have only recently started hearing this,
and only because of genetic manipulation. This is a _new_ idea in the last 20
years, and even today, it appears to be all talk about something in the
future, and not a single instance I've ever heard of where you could get a
virus treatment that was good for you today.

I read the article, I am talking about average people, not scientists who read
journals.

It's shocking to me that people have such short memory. Maybe you are a
teenager, but there was no virus manipulation 50 years ago that was considered
a benefit to humans. And if there was, it certainly wasn't advertised to the
masses.

~~~
ItsMe000001
> The everyday person has never once in their life, ever, heard that viruses
> are good.

Uhm... I'm shocked to find someone who seems to think that viruses have an
effect only when people "believe" in them/have heard about them. Sorry, that's
not how anything works. It is of exactly zero importance whether or not anyone
has "heard" about viruses. I'm shocked to read stuff like that in this forum.

We were talking about the headline, and I repeat, it's a faithful
representation of the main point, pretty much 1:1. From my perspective, I felt
well informed when clicking on the article - for once I actually knew what it
would be about before I clicked. That is a _good_ thing.

~~~
RobertRoberts
The title of the article is this:

> _Trillions of Viruses Fall from the Sky Each Day_

I learned in 4th grade science that viruses are parasites. Having trillions of
parasites falling from the sky every day is not a good thing.

Some mental gymnastics are required to conclude "parasites are good", but I
suggest that the vast majority of people don't believe parasites are good.

~~~
ItsMe000001
Full circle. I point to my previous comments. You keep repeating your weird
claims as if that makes them seem any less weird. The title is well-chosen. If
_you_ had a horrible education that is besides the point, it has nothing to do
with that article. Sorry for your bad experiences in school, can't help you
there I'm afraid, I don't understand why you bring it up.

~~~
RobertRoberts
My first comment was about the title being "fear-mongering". If you don't
think saying "parasites are falling from the sky" is not fear mongering
because you are more educated than others, then maybe you simply can't
understand the common man's dilemma.

