6 ms·

Influenza A (H1N1) – How many bits does it take to kill a human? (2009)

146 points by gpvos 10y ago

ghubbard 10y ago
(2009) Some discussion from the first time around: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=667801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=667801 Actual article title: On Influenza A (H1N1) HN clickbait version: On Influenza a (H1N1): How many bits does it take to kill a human?
- roflc0ptic 10y ago
  It's a little click-baity, but it's also a pretty good framing for the article, which discusses both the number of kilobytes encoded in the virus and the number of bits that need changing to make the virus deadlier. Much like with naming poems, they took the first sentence of the post (minus some preamble) and used it as the title. Idk. Seems pretty defensible to me.
  - schoen 10y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incipit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incipit
    - roflc0ptic 10y ago
      oh, neat. thanks.
  - gpvos 10y ago
    The incipit (thanks schoen, see sibling comment) was also in the link that got me to the article initially.
- TeMPOraL 10y ago
  Upvoting for the link to previous discussion. Some good stuff there. I don't mind this type of "clickbait" - it summarizes the main thread of the article well.
- mdrzn 10y ago
  Actually it's a good title. I wouldn't have clicked "On Influenza A" because it could have been just a science article. Instead, by adding that "how many bits" I know that it's gonna talk in computer science terms, and I enjoyed it. edit: it's also written in the article by the author, have you read it?
etimberg 10y ago
Viruses have a few "compression" techniques to get even more info out of a DNA sequence [1, 2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translational_frameshift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translational_frameshift [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_virus#Readthrough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_virus#Readthrough
- matt4077 10y ago
  Learning about these in class must have been the most "OMG biology is so fucking cool"-moment I've experienced. Seriously, read the links (especially [1]) – it's evolution going full Wozniak, with a few hundred million years of time.
- zkms 10y ago
  the "frameshift" thing is almost just like executing intentionally misaligned instructions to get a ROP gadget you need
rihegher 10y ago
spoiler: 25054
- curiousgal 10y ago
  r/savedyouaclick
- rpazyaquian 10y ago
  3131.75 bytes! Although I don't know if a fraction of a byte is valid.
sndean 10y ago
> There. A single base-pair change, flipping two bits, is perhaps all you need to turn the current less-deadly H1N1 swine flu virus into a more deadly variant. Similar idea: I have a friend in a lab who recently made a synthetic version of a virus (she said she was "resuscitating" the virus). It has a single point mutation. It's normally BSL-4 and causes lethal infection. With the mutation it's supposedly safe to work with and won't enter certain cells. Apparently the polymerase screwed up and altered some part of that gene, or maybe it wasn't mutated in the first place, or maybe the initial sequencing was incorrect. Regardless, I got a terrified message from her saying the synthetic version was replicating in a cell line that it wasn't supposed to. (Fortunately, she had continued to work with it in a containment lab.) Eventually her lab group scraped the study. Before this, I wasn't really concerned about this kind of work.
- tim333 10y ago
  That sounds a little scary.
- majkinetor 10y ago
  Should you be concerned ? SNP can happen in nauture easily any time, this way the difference is that you you are aware of what is going on.
  - sdegutis 10y ago
    Or speeding it up...
- esaym 10y ago
  <insert conspiracy theory about hepatitis vaccine causing AIDS in monkeys that where then released back into the wild in Africa>
  - nerdponx 10y ago
    Idk why you're being downvoted. I hadn't heard this conspiracy theory before. Interestingly isn't this similar to the Ebolavirus origin conspiracy theories?
tomkinstinch 10y ago
There are viruses with shorter genomes that are more hazardous, for example Lassa is ~10.68Kb (Kilobase), or 21.236Kb (Kilobit): 2.654KB (Kilobyte). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/10875 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/10875
tim333 10y ago
Looking at the numbers, Bunnie's proposed mutation may pop up in nature quite a bit. I guess it doesn't spread as well as the other strain and so dies out rather than growing exponentially.
kdelok 10y ago
Historically, the D->G mutation around 222 (numbering schemes vary) in 1918 Spanish flu caused a significant increase in pathogenicity. That's a single bit-flip.
ambrop7 10y ago
The RNA->protein translation process is pretty awesome. Here's a very informative video: https://youtu.be/TfYf_rPWUdY https://youtu.be/TfYf_rPWUdY Also Wikipedia page on the ribosome has a good description if you're patient enough to read through.
jwtadvice 10y ago
What an incredible way to conceptualize and compare computer versus biological viruses (with the size of them in bits looking reasonably similar). In the virus writing scene there are a number of trends that have allowed generic approaches to outsmart even incredibly complex "virus scanners": 1. polymorphic code - basically you keep the Turing Machine / Program Logic the same, but you use random widgets with random side effects to implement the program logic. In this case each instance of the virus is different per infected host and there are no reliable signatures based on the bits to recognize them. 2. Packers - basically a program that on its own is not malicious but can carry another compressed and encrypted program that it will "unpack" in memory and then execute - allowing a virus to ride through virus scanning. 3. Stagers - A small and otherwise innocuous piece of code that pulls commands in either real time or as needed from the network, keeping all program logic in memory, and executing malicious code that is never packed into a formal executable file (and thus never scanned by anti-virus). These have the advantage that they are basically impossible to forensically debug because the attacker will change or turn off the payload after the stager succeeds the first time. Has nature found a way to emulate any of these creative methods for bypassing immune systems? I remember hearing that HIV can look innocuous to an immune system, but I'm not sure that's because it uses a technique like the above.
maj0rhn 10y ago
Deriving a "lethal bit count" from virus genomes is not quite fair, since the virus requires considerable metabolic support from the host genome. I think I can kill you with 21 bits: hydrogen cyanide is a three-atom molecule. Assume 128 chemical elements --> 7 bits per atom. And the molecule will assemble itself from the constituent atoms, so no extra information is needed for that. Hydrogen fluoride might work, too: 14 bits. And, of course, a slug of plutonium would kill you both chemically (poison) and radioactively: 7 bits. Can't do better than that. Oh wait, if I shot a stream of electrons at you, that could kill you, too. There are six types of leptons (ignoring anti-matter), so that's three bits.
- maj0rhn 10y ago
  Or I can wait for the end of your lifespan. You're going to die no matter what. Zero bits.
- jpttsn 10y ago
  On the other hand the surface of the planet is teeming with meat machines that constantly execute DNA. This article is written by and for them.
nojvek 10y ago
The read is just fascinating. I have sleepless nights sometimes thinking about DNA cell manufacturing. If we could program DNA, understand it structure, can we just manufactor, houses, cars, and machines from a seed that you drop into water and it grows into a design of your choosing with the help of sunlight. Where can I find more information about how DNA actually ends up creating a little cell.
smsm42 10y ago
Fascinating stuff. But for computer viruses, 22k is really a lot. Back when computers and OSes were simpler, there were viruses fitting into a boot sector (512 bytes). Of course, since the boot sector has also to have some useful information (otherwise the OS won't boot and the virus can't distribute itself) the actual size was less. It wasn't super-hard to do such viruses either - provided you are comfortable with assembly coding and low-level OS programming of course. I wrote one myself back when I was a student as an exercise (didn't distribute it of course ;). It didn't anything sophisticated, but still could replicate.

146 points by gpvos 10y ago

(2009) Some discussion from the first time around: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=667801 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=667801 Actual article title: On Influenza A (H1N1) HN clickbait version: On Influenza a (H1N1): How many bits does it take to kill a human?

roflc0ptic 10y ago
It's a little click-baity, but it's also a pretty good framing for the article, which discusses both the number of kilobytes encoded in the virus and the number of bits that need changing to make the virus deadlier. Much like with naming poems, they took the first sentence of the post (minus some preamble) and used it as the title. Idk. Seems pretty defensible to me.
- schoen 10y ago
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incipit https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incipit
  - roflc0ptic 10y ago
    oh, neat. thanks.
- gpvos 10y ago
  The incipit (thanks schoen, see sibling comment) was also in the link that got me to the article initially.
TeMPOraL 10y ago
Upvoting for the link to previous discussion. Some good stuff there. I don't mind this type of "clickbait" - it summarizes the main thread of the article well.
mdrzn 10y ago
Actually it's a good title. I wouldn't have clicked "On Influenza A" because it could have been just a science article. Instead, by adding that "how many bits" I know that it's gonna talk in computer science terms, and I enjoyed it. edit: it's also written in the article by the author, have you read it?

etimberg 10y ago

Viruses have a few "compression" techniques to get even more info out of a DNA sequence [1, 2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translational_frameshift https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Translational_frameshift [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_virus#Readthrough https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plant_virus#Readthrough

matt4077 10y ago
Learning about these in class must have been the most "OMG biology is so fucking cool"-moment I've experienced. Seriously, read the links (especially [1]) – it's evolution going full Wozniak, with a few hundred million years of time.
zkms 10y ago
the "frameshift" thing is almost just like executing intentionally misaligned instructions to get a ROP gadget you need

rihegher 10y ago

spoiler: 25054

curiousgal 10y ago
r/savedyouaclick
rpazyaquian 10y ago
3131.75 bytes! Although I don't know if a fraction of a byte is valid.

sndean 10y ago

> There. A single base-pair change, flipping two bits, is perhaps all you need to turn the current less-deadly H1N1 swine flu virus into a more deadly variant. Similar idea: I have a friend in a lab who recently made a synthetic version of a virus (she said she was "resuscitating" the virus). It has a single point mutation. It's normally BSL-4 and causes lethal infection. With the mutation it's supposedly safe to work with and won't enter certain cells. Apparently the polymerase screwed up and altered some part of that gene, or maybe it wasn't mutated in the first place, or maybe the initial sequencing was incorrect. Regardless, I got a terrified message from her saying the synthetic version was replicating in a cell line that it wasn't supposed to. (Fortunately, she had continued to work with it in a containment lab.) Eventually her lab group scraped the study. Before this, I wasn't really concerned about this kind of work.

tim333 10y ago
That sounds a little scary.
majkinetor 10y ago
Should you be concerned ? SNP can happen in nauture easily any time, this way the difference is that you you are aware of what is going on.
- sdegutis 10y ago
  Or speeding it up...
esaym 10y ago
<insert conspiracy theory about hepatitis vaccine causing AIDS in monkeys that where then released back into the wild in Africa>
- nerdponx 10y ago
  Idk why you're being downvoted. I hadn't heard this conspiracy theory before. Interestingly isn't this similar to the Ebolavirus origin conspiracy theories?

tomkinstinch 10y ago

There are viruses with shorter genomes that are more hazardous, for example Lassa is ~10.68Kb (Kilobase), or 21.236Kb (Kilobit): 2.654KB (Kilobyte). https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/10875 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/genome/10875

tim333 10y ago

Looking at the numbers, Bunnie's proposed mutation may pop up in nature quite a bit. I guess it doesn't spread as well as the other strain and so dies out rather than growing exponentially.

kdelok 10y ago

Historically, the D->G mutation around 222 (numbering schemes vary) in 1918 Spanish flu caused a significant increase in pathogenicity. That's a single bit-flip.

ambrop7 10y ago

The RNA->protein translation process is pretty awesome. Here's a very informative video: https://youtu.be/TfYf_rPWUdY https://youtu.be/TfYf_rPWUdY Also Wikipedia page on the ribosome has a good description if you're patient enough to read through.

jwtadvice 10y ago

What an incredible way to conceptualize and compare computer versus biological viruses (with the size of them in bits looking reasonably similar). In the virus writing scene there are a number of trends that have allowed generic approaches to outsmart even incredibly complex "virus scanners": 1. polymorphic code - basically you keep the Turing Machine / Program Logic the same, but you use random widgets with random side effects to implement the program logic. In this case each instance of the virus is different per infected host and there are no reliable signatures based on the bits to recognize them. 2. Packers - basically a program that on its own is not malicious but can carry another compressed and encrypted program that it will "unpack" in memory and then execute - allowing a virus to ride through virus scanning. 3. Stagers - A small and otherwise innocuous piece of code that pulls commands in either real time or as needed from the network, keeping all program logic in memory, and executing malicious code that is never packed into a formal executable file (and thus never scanned by anti-virus). These have the advantage that they are basically impossible to forensically debug because the attacker will change or turn off the payload after the stager succeeds the first time. Has nature found a way to emulate any of these creative methods for bypassing immune systems? I remember hearing that HIV can look innocuous to an immune system, but I'm not sure that's because it uses a technique like the above.

maj0rhn 10y ago

Deriving a "lethal bit count" from virus genomes is not quite fair, since the virus requires considerable metabolic support from the host genome. I think I can kill you with 21 bits: hydrogen cyanide is a three-atom molecule. Assume 128 chemical elements --> 7 bits per atom. And the molecule will assemble itself from the constituent atoms, so no extra information is needed for that. Hydrogen fluoride might work, too: 14 bits. And, of course, a slug of plutonium would kill you both chemically (poison) and radioactively: 7 bits. Can't do better than that. Oh wait, if I shot a stream of electrons at you, that could kill you, too. There are six types of leptons (ignoring anti-matter), so that's three bits.

maj0rhn 10y ago
Or I can wait for the end of your lifespan. You're going to die no matter what. Zero bits.
jpttsn 10y ago
On the other hand the surface of the planet is teeming with meat machines that constantly execute DNA. This article is written by and for them.

nojvek 10y ago

The read is just fascinating. I have sleepless nights sometimes thinking about DNA cell manufacturing. If we could program DNA, understand it structure, can we just manufactor, houses, cars, and machines from a seed that you drop into water and it grows into a design of your choosing with the help of sunlight. Where can I find more information about how DNA actually ends up creating a little cell.

smsm42 10y ago

Fascinating stuff. But for computer viruses, 22k is really a lot. Back when computers and OSes were simpler, there were viruses fitting into a boot sector (512 bytes). Of course, since the boot sector has also to have some useful information (otherwise the OS won't boot and the virus can't distribute itself) the actual size was less. It wasn't super-hard to do such viruses either - provided you are comfortable with assembly coding and low-level OS programming of course. I wrote one myself back when I was a student as an exercise (didn't distribute it of course ;). It didn't anything sophisticated, but still could replicate.