
A New Discovery Upends What We Know About Viruses - lnguyen
https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/03/the-revolutionary-discovery-of-a-distributed-virus/584884/
======
chmod775
> “But we were also scared about it being a [mistake]. We took six years to
> verify it.”

In the field of psychology (and likely others) the results would have been
published six years ago.

This shows how scientific standards and diligence can vary from field to
field.

~~~
fifnir
I don't see why everything published needs to be the absolute truth (which of
course nothing can be).

If they had published six years ago, the whole community would have been able
to validate and confirm in those six years, instead of just their own lab.
Someone in a different lab might have had a better idea and the thing could be
validated in two years instead of six.

As long as results are transparently and reproducibly shared, knowledge is
knowledge and there's no reason to hide it.

~~~
naasking
Agreed, but there's no doubt some ego and prestige at stake for a) not wanting
to look stupid for making an elementary mistake, and b) being the one to upend
currently accepted wisdom. There's probably a balance to be struck between
these, but sometimes it might just take 6 years.

------
coldtea
> _It is a truth universally acknowledged among virologists that a single
> virus, carrying a full set of genes, must be in want of a cell._

I see what he did there.

~~~
timdellinger
(For those who might not recognize it: this is a clever play on the first line
of Jane Austin's novel Pride and Prejudice.)

~~~
azeotropic
I think we can legitimately differ on whether it's clever or not.

~~~
chmod775
It's clever because it does not stand out to people who haven't read Pride and
Prejudice, but adds a little something for people who did.

------
black-tea
Very cool that this has been observed but I actually think this kind of thing
is inevitable given the way viruses work and their rapid rate of mutation.
We've known for many years that viruses like influenza use different parts of
a cell to reproduce different parts of the virion. They can also mix up their
genomes when multiple virions infect the same cell. Furthermore we know that
this can lead to genomes to support each other, for example a genome that is
great at infecting cells but poor at reproducing will end being reproduced by
the machinery of a different genome. It's not hard to imagine this going the
next step and not even requiring every part of the genome to be present in a
cell.

Viruses are the most fascinating part of biology. An inevitability caused by a
security flaw in the way genetics works.

------
tdmule
Ed Yong rocks. Another well written science piece that is easy to digest
without drifting into sensationalism.

~~~
vibrio
I am also a fan of Yong, but "Upends what we know about virues" is a bit
sensational. The article interesting for sure, but lately it seems that every
book or study "turns Darwin on his head" or puts us in a "post-Pasteur era".
I"m not even going to think about Cacner headlines. All overstatement of
interesting science findings.

upend (ŭp-ĕndˈ) v.To stand, set, or turn on one end: upend an oblong box. v.To
invalidate, destroy, or change completely; overthrow: upended a popular
legend. v.To win victory over; defeat.

~~~
overthemoon
Can't say for sure re this article, but often editors choose headlines.

~~~
vibrio
Sure, but as far as I'm concerned if you get the byline you own the content.
Again I like Yong, not faulting him but rather a general trend in media. I'm
being a science curmudgeon.

------
exabrial
So microservices... but viruses.

~~~
navaati
Now wait until computer virus writers use the idea ! A virus distributing
little pieces of its payload over several binaries !

Ah, that's probably common already…

~~~
s_y_n_t_a_x
I mean isn't that what a trojan technically does.

A small binary that embeds itself, opens a backdoor, and downloads more
intrusive code.

~~~
8note
but what about multiple Trojans at once, that each download a piece of more
intrusive code, but it only starts up once all the pieces are available on the
same network?

~~~
navaati
Yeah that's more what I meant by "distributed". Doesn't have to be over the
network though, loads of side channels on a machine…

------
nabnob
Does this have implications for other areas of biology outside of virology?
These seems like it radically changes our understanding of how genes work.

------
aaavl2821
how do the proteins get into plant cells? i know very little about plant cells
but in humans, proteins don't often cross the cell membrane

------
asimjalis
Basically viruses are JavaScript modules.

~~~
kavalg
LOL :)

And not only that. After million years of evolution there are still some JS
like viruses left.

------
dreamling
I love the opening line.

