3 ms·
> Ebola virus is a microscopic parasite that replicates inside the cells of a host A lot of the terminology used in this article is confusing. My understanding
by davidhyde 7y ago
> Ebola virus is a microscopic parasite that replicates inside the cells of a host
A lot of the terminology used in this article is confusing. My understanding is that you get viruses (dead and tiny), bacteria (alive but small) and parasites (alive and usually bigger than bacteria). The author also talks about particles a lot as if the Ebola virus was only the rna and the particle was its trogan horse. I thought that a virus was the whole thing.
The summary was as follows: Once the Ebola virus jumps from bats to humans it mutates differently to what it would in bats. This can’t be studied because we can’t experiment on humans so the scary thing is that we have to just wait and see when there is an outbreak and every outbreak is different.
- vibrio 7y agoTo be honest we probably can't do quality experiments on bats either. That explains why the article describes transplanting portions of the viral coat proteins on to other viruses-- to enable growth, albeit in an artificial system. that's how things are done. The problem of limited model systems is only relevant to ebola, but many other viruses (bacteria, diseases, ....)
- jazoom 7y agoI don't know where your definition of parasite has come from but I've never heard it. Also, it's not universally agreed upon whether viruses are living or non-living (dead is the incorrect term). Parasite: an organism that lives in or on an organism of another species (its host) and benefits by deriving nutrients at the other's expense. Sounds like a virus to me.