Viruses

antibiotics can work negatively. Antibiotic overuse is a serious matter that must be addressed by more people. The use of antibiotics should be restricted to the public, due to the fact that, antibiotics often: affect the wrong bacteria, do not treat the viruses, and are often overused. Antibiotics were created in order to fight off bacterial infections in the body, in the early 1940’s. According to, A Brief History of Antibiotics, “Alexander Fleming, was the first scientist to discover one…

It is generally accepted that a virophage is a viral agent that infects other larger viruses. It is a dsDNA virus which utilizes the replication factories of other viruses to reproduce itself. Virophages are essentially parasitic in nature, much in the same way as traditional satellite viruses. It is not without controversy that distinctions between satellite viruses and virophages are described. The difference between the two often seem more semantic than factual and more supported by…

characteristics of viruses. Therefore, most of these new pathogens are viruses. A virus has one role, to enter into a host and reproduce. Usually, a virus is made up of nucleic acid forming either DNA or RNA. The DNA or RNA is then surrounded by a capsid in order to protect the genetic materials. The virus will inject its genetic material into the host. Then, the virus will do one of two things; it might join its genetic material to the host’s and reproduce or it might produce more viruses using…

The influenza virus was infecting its hosts long before the discovery of viruses in the late 1800’s. The longevity of the virus can be attributed to its ability to quickly mutate its genome, which consists of only eight negative-sense RNA segments. These small mutations allow the virus to rapidly evolve. In fact, approximately every twenty to thirty years the virus evolves into a “super virus” capable of causing significant pandemics (Webster, 2014). The influenza A virus is the envelope virus…

subject. It was not too long ago relatively speaking that viruses were more or less an unknown entity, as many facts about viruses were unknown to the days researchers. Now however much more is known about what viruses are and how they work; more importantly it is known that viral agents are one of the leading causes of disease. Once it was established that they did in fact cause disease it became imperative to understand how viruses infected their hosts so that measures could be taken…

inaccurate. Scientific Information Viruses In and Out of the Movie A virus is a non-living infectious agent that is too small to be seen by regular light…

How do we know that genes are made of DNA? In the 1920s, scientists agreed that genes are located on chromosomes, and they already knew that DNA and proteins make up chromosomes. They assumed that genes were made of proteins because DNA is chemically simple and proteins are not, but this was proven to be wrong. In the late 1920s, a great discovery was made by Fred Griffith while studying Streptococcus pneumonia (pneumococcus). He found that pneumococci come in a pathogenic form and a harmless…

(the membranous coverings of the brain and spinal cord), causing meningoencephalitis. It is the reaction of the body's immune system to infection or invasion, and is often caused by a viral infection or a reaction to a virus or foreign protein. The viruses that cause primary, or viral encephalitis can be epidemic, like Polio, or sporadic, including herpes simplex virus, type 1 (HSV-1), and mumps. It is caused by direct viral infection, whilst secondary encephalitis is caused by an immune…

There are three types of human influenza viruses: influenza virus A (IVA), influenza virus B and influenza virus C2,5. Type A virus is the most virulent of the three and causes the most serious disease. In addition to humans, it also infects animals such as birds, pigs, horses and bats6. Until now…

overuse of vaccines has contributed to the increased incidence of emerging diseases and resistance and their controls and treatments. Infectious diseases are caused by pathogens or organisms such as viruses, bacteria, fungi and parasites. The human immune system is the last line of defense against viruses and bacteria that enter the body. To fight off infectious diseases and protect the body, the immune system attacks organisms and substances that invade body systems. The immune system is an…