The truth about the virus! Seeing the huge virus world through the new crown pneumonia

In 2020, the Chinese people will feel the spring festival atmosphere that never existed before Spreading novel coronavirus not only hinders the way home, but also brings panic that has never happened In fact, in the process of balance between human and nature, viruses always come to challenge after a certain period, and this situation will continue! This article introduces the virus situation of our planet with the attitude of science popularization, hoping to let you further understand the discovery and Survival Logic of the virus through this epidemic situation In the desert 80 kilometers southeast of Chihuahua, Mexico, there is a barren mountain called naika mountain In 2000, several miners worked in intricate underground caves in the mountains When they dug to a depth of 300 meters, they found a 9-meter-wide and 30-meter-long cave lined with smooth and transparent gypsum crystals, all of which were more than 10 meters long, the heaviest of which was more than 50 tons, with a huge volume! After the cave was discovered, many geologists came here to explore and confirm that the crystal began 26 million years ago; in 2009, Curtis Sutter, a scientist from the University of British Columbia in Canada, came to the crystal cave and scooped some water back to the laboratory It should be noted that the research field of the scientist is not geology, but virus Curtis Sutter, through the analysis of water, found that every drop of water has 200 million viruses The virus world then opened the door to scientists, who could have thought that there would be such a huge biological population in the desert! The origin of virus name The word "virus" is very contradictory It originated from the Roman Empire At that time, it meant the venom of a snake or the semen of a human This word gave two meanings of "destruction" and "creation" at the same time A few centuries later, the word "virus" gradually took on different meanings, either referring to substances with infectious characteristics or substances transmitted through the air It was not until the 19th century that the "virus" came closer to what we now mean, and this came from a major agricultural disaster, that is, the crops on tobacco farms in the Netherlands suddenly suffered from "serious diseases", the leaves died one by one, and finally the farms failed Agricultural scientist Adolf Meyer speculated that tobacco was infected.. But based on the understanding at that time, Adolf Meyer's research direction was fungi; and through a series of tests, no substantial progress was made A few years later, the Dutch scientist Martinus bayelink ground the infected plants, filtered the juice with a fine filter, and injected the filtrate into the healthy plants again As a result, tobacco got the disease! Through a series of follow-up tests, in 1898, bayelink called them "infectious living fluid", and the "magical" substances in the living fluid, which bayelink called "virus" In the 1950s, although virologists had the basic information about the virus, many thorny questions remained unclear, such as why does papillomavirus make rabbits grow horns? Why do they reach the human body and cause hundreds of thousands of cervical cancer cases every year in the world? Why do some viruses kill people, but others are relatively harmless? How can viruses conquer the host's defense system, and how can they evolve faster than any other species on earth? The spread of HIV from chimpanzees to humans has made it one of the most murderous killers in human history The virus is complex and sometimes concise We can give a more everyday but helpless example, influenza virus! Influenza, influenza, originated from Italian, influenced the meaning of "influence", which can be traced back to the middle ages A severe influenza outbreak in 1918 sickened 500 million people, one third of the world's population at that time, and killed 50 million people Even in years when there is no pandemic, the flu has cost people a lot The World Health Organization (who) estimates that influenza affects 5% - 10% of adults and 20% - 30% of children around the world every year Every year, about 25-50 million people are killed by flu Now, scientists have long known that influenza is not a natural disaster, but a tiny virus Like the rhinovirus that causes the common cold, the genetic information of influenza virus is very simple, with only 13 genes With so little information, the flu virus can show its power And the flu virus spreads with the patient's cough, sneeze and nasal spray People who accidentally inhale droplets containing virus, or touch the door handle that owns the virus and then touch their mouth, may become the next victim Influenza has caused a lot of contradictory effects and still puzzles virologists Seasonal influenza is most dangerous for people with vulnerable immune systems, especially children and the elderly, because of their vulnerable immune systems However, in the 1918 pandemic, the most immune system stable young people are the most vulnerable One theory is that flu can stimulate the immune system to overreact and destroy the host But another theory is that the 1918 flu virus is similar to the one during the 1889 pandemic, when the 1918 pandemic broke out, the older generation carried the antibodies obtained in 1889, which protected them Although the lethality of influenza virus is still elusive, the evidence of its origin in birds is still sufficient All influenza viruses that infect humans can be found in birds At the same time, birds also carry more influenza viruses that will not infect humans Sometimes, some avian influenza viruses will flow to "human beings", and people working in chicken farms or slaughtering poultry on the market may become the first victims In 2009, influenza A (H1N1) virus is still rampant around the world Like the previous pandemic, it infected 10% - 20% of the world's population The U.S is scrambling to develop a vaccine for H1N1, but the vaccine was not ready until the autumn of the same year, and the immune effect against the virus is not so good In the end, the outbreak killed 250000 people before it was hidden And one day in the future, maybe after further changes, we will fight with human beings Schedule 1: influenza virus treatment drugs (chemicals) HPV ~ long horned rabbit In the 1930s, Richard sharp, a scientist at Rockefeller University in the United States, heard about the antler rabbit during a hunting trip and asked his friends to help him catch one to analyze what exactly "antler" consists of Previously, Shaw's colleagues conducted an experiment with chickens, which showed that the virus could cause tumors Thus, Thorpe conjectured whether the horn on the rabbit would be a tumor caused by a certain virus, which was later confirmed by experiments Next, Thorpe's friend rauth injected the virus into the rabbit The operation did not make the rabbit grow "horns", but it caused a more terrible cancer, and the injected rabbit died Rouse won the Nobel Prize in physiology / medicine in 1966 for discovering the link between virus and cancer In the 1970s, German scientist halaldchulhausen speculated that the harm of papillomavirus to human beings might be far more than the simple pimples on the skin He suspects that cervical cancer in women may be related to the virus Previous studies have shown that cervical cancer spreads in a similar way to sexually transmitted diseases For example, nuns are much less likely to have cervical cancer than other women Some scientists suspect that a sexually transmitted virus can cause cervical cancer HPV has a "history" of causing cancer, so hausen has targeted HPV In 1983, he identified more papillomavirus strains in his samples, and thus shared the 2008 Nobel Prize in physiology / medicine Numerous women died of cervical cancer, which is the third leading cause of female death, second only to breast cancer and lung cancer All cervical cancer starts with HPV infection and the virus injects its DNA into the host cell HPV is particularly good at infecting epithelial cells, which make up most of our skin and mucous membranes The gene of the virus will eventually run to the nucleus of the host cell, which contains the cell's own DNA The cell will read out the HPV gene together and produce the egg deterioration of the virus These proteins start to change cells In 2006, the world's first HPV vaccine was approved for marketing in the United States and Europe These vaccines all contain HPV's coat protein When injected into the human body, our immune system will start to learn to recognize HPV In the future, if someone is infected with HPV, his immune system can immediately organize resistance and quickly clean up the virus The use of vaccines has sparked controversy in the United States, with manufacturers recommending immunizations for children aged 11 to 13, and some parents worried that the initiative would encourage children to have premarital sex In 2013, only 35% of boys and 57% of girls received HPV vaccine before the age of 13 And scientists have long found that children vaccinated have complete immunity to the two viruses that cause 70% of cervical cancer Of course, even if all children are vaccinated, cervical cancer may not disappear At the same time, we should be careful about the evolution of HPV virus Table 2: Statistics of HPV vaccines on the market