I recently gave a talk in San Francisco about the future of viruses, based in part on my book, A Planet of Viruses. I talk about how deadly new outbreaks may emerge, how we may harness viruses for technology and medicine, and just how many viruses there are out there (hint: 10000000000000000000000000000000).
This question has its roots in a paper I published almost three decades ago in the Journal of Theoretical Biology (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6672474) in which I outlined the scientific and academic constrains associated with the dogma of viruses as virus particles, and proposed a new model for the origin and nature of viruses (an open access update of this model is available at: http://precedings.nature.com/documents/3886/version/1).
Given you interest and fascination with viruses, I wonder what do you think about the comment and about the alternative paradigm on the nature and evolutionary origin of viruses?
Carl,
I enjoyed your talk about the future of viruses, as well as your book ‘A Planet of Viruses.’
In a comment to a review of your book in Nature by Robin Weiss, I asked: “What is a virus Dr. Weiss?” (http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v474/n7351/full/474279a.html?wt.ec_id=nature-20110616).
This question has its roots in a paper I published almost three decades ago in the Journal of Theoretical Biology (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/6672474) in which I outlined the scientific and academic constrains associated with the dogma of viruses as virus particles, and proposed a new model for the origin and nature of viruses (an open access update of this model is available at: http://precedings.nature.com/documents/3886/version/1).
Given you interest and fascination with viruses, I wonder what do you think about the comment and about the alternative paradigm on the nature and evolutionary origin of viruses?