Word: bacterias
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Ancient Way. When living alone, the cells are amoebae, and impossible to distinguish from other amoebae which have never learned to cooperate. They crawl slowly at random, grazing on bacteria. When one grows large, it divides in two by the cheerless, asexual mode of multiplication for which amoebae are famous. This is the ancient way of life, before cooperation...
...measure the amount of phosphorus-containing protein which moves out of the nucleus of a microscopic living cell. Without radiophosphorus, such an experiment would be impossible. Many researchers, hoping to learn how disease germs enter the body and how they do their damage, are tagging living bacteria with radioactive phosphorus...
...viruses are alike in one respect: they are parasites that can operate only in a living cell. But they differ greatly in size, looks and behavior. They also show astonishing individuality. Some are round, some shaped like rods, some have tails like tadpoles. A few, almost as complicated as bacteria, which are a higher form of life, even have partial enzyme systems to help digest their food. Most viruses are rabid specialists and choosy about what they invade. Some thrive only in plants, some only in certain animals, some only in man, some only in certain tissues; e.g., the influenza...
...might represent the primitive beginnings of life. Many experts now believe that it is the other way around. One of the world's top virus authorities, Australia's Dr. Frank M. Burnet, a champion of the evolution-in-reverse theory, contends that viruses may once have been bacteria and that they are steadily degenerating into more simple forms...
...Burnet thinks that man has less to fear from viruses than from bacteria. An outstanding fact about viruses, says he, is that their well-being depends on the health of their host. Unlike bacteria and insects, which are often out-&-out rivals of man, viruses can live only as long as the human being they infect. Unfortunately for the host, viruses often commit suicide by killing the patient. But in the long run, says Burnet, the virus varieties with the best chance of survival are those that "live & let live." Many of the viruses that infect man have evolved into...