Viruses (in particular, RNA viruses) are great to study if you want to learn how genomics and the genetic code works. They are much nicer than studying large or

Viruses (in particular, RNA viruses) are great to study if you want to learn how genomics and the genetic code works. They are much nicer than studying large organisms because you can understand every part of them. They have just a handful of genes which correspond directly to proteins found in the resulting virion. In fact, viruses like HIV and influenza are very much like compact computer programs. Every part of them has a particular purpose and interfaces with the host organism's mechanisms. It exploits the host and forces it to reproduce the virus. HIV's genome is even compressed using overlapping reading frames. It almost seems like it must have been designed. One really cool part of the virus reproduction is that it must get the host to both reproduce and express its genome (ie. make proteins out of it). These things happen at completely different parts of the cell, yet somehow enough of the reproduced genomes end up in perfectly formed virions that the whole thing keeps working. Fascinating.