Trillions of Viruses Fall from the Sky Each Day

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/04/13/science/virosphere-evolution.html

183 83 8 years ago

One study estimated that viruses in the ocean cause a trillion trillion infections every second, destroying some 20 percent of all bacterial cells in the sea daily.

That excerpt really put it into perspective for me. I guess I always thought that viruses didn't have much of an impact, aside from ocasionally causing a pandemic and incorporating themselves into our genome. But the thought of viruses killing a fifth of all bacteria in the sea everyday is staggering.

perl4ever• 8 years ago

Given the number of recent articles about how gut bacteria may regulate body and mind, it makes me wonder how viruses may regulate those bacteria.

Robotbeat3• 8 years ago

Bacteria are the "grey goo" catastrophe. Viruses are the cure.

cup-of-tea• 8 years ago

Most people are infected by a few viruses for their whole life and the bacteria inside us are infected by many. We don't know what any of them do or whether they are good for us.

tasty_freeze• 8 years ago

"Viruses, A Very Short Introduction" by Dorothy H Crawford, says this on page 21:

"There are around 10e6 different viral species in a kilogram of marine sediment where they infect and kill co-resident bacteria. Overall, marine viruses kill an estimated 20-40% of all marine bacteria every day."

kreetx• 8 years ago

Since the info presented in the article is totally new to me, would you say this book is a good intro to a non-scientist on this entire topic?

sitkack2• 8 years ago

I had no idea that bacteria had it so hard. I thought they mostly had "easy liv'n".

ams6110• 8 years ago

One would assume the reproduction rate of the bacteria is sufficient to make this sustainable.

adrianN• 8 years ago

Given that bacteria and viruses existed for billions of years...

fipple• 8 years ago

Yes, in the lab, bacteria can double in less than an hour.

ars• 8 years ago

Easily. The bacterial population can double in just half an hour. The only thing limiting them is nutrients.

And they probably get a lot of those nutrients from bacteria that died, so it self balances.

enitihas2• 8 years ago

That sounds like exponential reduction in the number of bacteria. How do any bacteria survive with this rate, unless I am missing something.

laser• 8 years ago

Bacteria grow at an exponential rate :) What at an incredible equilibrium. In optimal conditions E. coli can double every twenty minutes! These organisms live on a completely different time scale.

narag• 8 years ago

Reproducing at a higher rate?

pas• 8 years ago

The lucky ones exponentially conquer the freed up space, then some lucky virus gets to them, rinse, repeat.

justinator• 8 years ago

I guess the layman's followup question (if I may) is, why didn't something like Smallpox spread over to the Americas, if viruses are that prevalent? Why did they need a human host? Is there a specific evolutionary niche to not being infectious via the air?

ridgeguy• 8 years ago

It might be that airborne transport imposes barriers that smallpox didn't evolve to meet. Perhaps something like resistance to degradation by UV in sunlight.

If so, maybe the apparently large cohort of viruses that do survive airborne dispersal is only a small fraction of the actual virus inventory on our planet.

amelius2• 8 years ago

IANAB, but perhaps the concentration is too low to cause any harm?

knappa• 8 years ago

I would think that the virii that have that kind of prevalence are mostly bacteriophages.

keithwhor• 8 years ago

This is the correct answer.

Viruses are also very specialized molecular machinery, and eukaryotic cells (and by extension, organisms) are quite complex. Think of molecular evolution between viruses v. prokaryotes / eukaryotes like a constant arms race: viruses have the "key" to (1) enter a cell and (2) hijack cellular machinery, and prokaryotes / eukaryotes are constantly upgrading their locks (mostly as a factor of diversity x natural selection --- the cells without great locks tend to be terminated rather quickly).

Also consider that it's not in a virus' "best interest" (from a sustainability / propagative standpoint) to actually kill or even incapacitate 100% of their hosts, which contradicts their very mode of replication (often completely hijacking transcription and translation mechanisms in a cell, leading to lysis). They rely on these hosts to survive --- a 100% termination rate of the host means an evolutionary dead-end for a virus.

Arguably, the most "successful" viruses are ones that have been incorporated into host DNA - it's estimated that up to 8% of our genome consists of endogenous retrovirus DNA [1]. After all, viruses are simply small containers of self-replicative material (DNA / RNA, a few proteins) surrounded by a protein coat: if they can hijack their own environmental shield (like, say, a full human nucleus / cell) and still propagate their DNA they've arguably "won."

So --- yeah, harmful virulence is (1) tough to achieve and (2) not actually all that evolutionarily advantageous.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endogenous_retrovirus

RobertRoberts10• 8 years ago

Why does this feel a little like fear-mongering?

George Carlin on germs, really funny stuff.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CnmMNdiCz_s

andai2• 8 years ago

Really? I thought it was more like awesome-mongering.

RobertRoberts10• 8 years ago

What is awesome about viruses raining down from they sky?

ItsMe0000019• 8 years ago

You should have read more than the headline before commenting.

RobertRoberts10• 8 years ago

Let me rephrase then:

"Why does this _headline_ feel a little like fear-mongering?"

SubiculumCode• 8 years ago

The possibility that viruses can benefit a host or cellular species is interesting. I have wondered whether the common cold virus(es) may impart some benefit to humans? Are we symbiotic with mutualism?

Could they provide some defense or warning against other diseases in the environment? Just speculating.

pbhjpbhj2• 8 years ago

Interesting idea; it strikes me there's a kinda mutualism.

If outsiders are often hostile, as interlopers won't have immunities the local group have, the incomers will potentially suffer a degree of debilitation - that is perhaps sufficient to give the local group the edge in battle, or to cement friendship through nurturing the non-fatally sick.

kortex3• 8 years ago

I have a theory, more of a headcannon really, that coughing and sneezing actually evolved (in part) to deliberately spread infectious agents, as opposed to less-atomizing means of clearing mucus. Airborn viruses are typically non-lethal (otherwise it would wipe out the species readily), and it would have the effect of spreading these and creating survival pressure which culls the weak, freeing up resources and enhancing selection.

The anti-outsider effects would also be a perk.

ItsMe0000019• 8 years ago

Anecdote time.

I'm not going to write a lengthy comment (that nobody reads anyway), suffice it to say I suffered from (clinically tested) chronic heavy metal poisoning and got chelation therapy (chelators DMPS and DMSA) with success far exceeding what the doctors expected (pretty much all problems I had that were attributed - including by myself - to age, computer/desk work, "that's life" - went away.

Towards the point when it all got too much, forcing me to acknowledge something was wrong (after suffering a tiny bit more and more over decades), I had ended up in a situation that when I got a cold (in winter) it just would not stop until May.

Up to this point one might just suspect that well, the immune system suffers so of course you get more sick. However, during the years of therapy I found that each time I still got a cold A LOT of "stuff" was happening and the symptoms that I associated with the removal of the heavy metals would increase significantly during that time. Also, I found that when it got really bad when I injected DMPS I got much better! Which (sane) doctor would recommend injecting a chelator when you got a cold or stomach flu??? (Disclaimer: Of course, the chelator only worked because of the underlying condition, obviously I'm not saying that it is an antidote against flu symptoms.)

Note that in my case the area of the upper jaw and around the nose was heavily impacted, unseen even in panorama x-ray the bone matrix up there was in such a bad state that when a doctor wanted to inject something into the buccal mucosa the needle went straight into the jaw bone in several places. He injected chelator and a lot of stuff started happening (positive, self-repair), a year later the needle could not penetrate the bone anywhere. Each time I got a cold the entire upper jaw bone area hurt, that's why I suspected a connection and at some point, when it got pretty bad (overall symptoms) tried the chelator during a stomach flu, with immediate success.

I (now) have a basic background (I'd say two years university study equivalent) in biology, anatomy, physiology, chemistry, org. chemistry, bio chemistry, statistics (medical studies and biology focus), neuroscience. While that does not help me to say anything with any level of authority at all, especially since I'm my only subject of "research", it sets a lower threshold for the kinds of stuff I'm willing/able to believe I'd say. I see no contradiction to what I learned in these "esoteric" theories.

Still, my conclusion based on (kind of extreme) personal experience is that infections play a role that goes far beyond "I'm sick". I stopped taking cold medicine as far as I could bear it because I felt (without prove, purely subjective) that this removed harmful stuff (other than the bacteria/viruses).

I would not be surprised to see negative long-term effects after we really "cure" the common cold and nobody gets sick any more. "Can't we just core the cold for good?" -- in the past I would have agreed wholeheartedly, but now I say let's be very cautious about seemingly "simple" interventions. There is much much more going on that we have not even started to grasp.

no-s• 8 years ago

My wife (a critical care RN) asks “how did you get heavy metal poisoning?” And also “approximately how old were you when you started therapy?”

erikpukinskis2• 8 years ago

Reminds me of the movement to grow vegetable in shipping containers. Perhaps we have understood the full equation of plant nutrition in a closed system, perhaps not.

I will say I suspect your point will have a hard time gaining traction. I wonder if there is an evolutionary advantage for memes that promote deconstructionism, at least in this phase of history where there is so much low hanging fruit of things to deconstruct.

A person who believes a lettuce plant can be fully understood in a 1000 page report will endeavor to write that report and build technology from it.

Someone who believes there is an unknowable (in the near term) essential component to thriving will tend to say “let’s stick as close to tradition as we can... don’t know what we might miss.”

The payoff for the deconstructionist is invention, fortune, and an audience. The payoff for the anti-deconstructionist is better health, perhaps a greater sensitivity to what’s real, and a lot of blank stares.

danieltillett• 8 years ago

Yes, but not for the reason you might think. Europeans were able to conquer the new world civilisations like the Inca and Aztecs (and many others) because they brought their special weapons - smallpox and influenza. These viruses and their European hosts did well out of this symbiotic relationship and it is almost certainly the reason we are now writing in the language of a smallish European island.

ModernMech• 8 years ago

Very relevant to your point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Germs,_and_Steel

kryptiskt• 8 years ago

A human's stomach lining is designed to nestle bacteriophages (those viruses that looks like moon landers that reproduce in bacteria) in it and they make sure that the bacteria population in the stomach stays put.

neuronic• 8 years ago

Do what you want but I don't particularly enjoy calling anything natural "designed".

dennis_jeeves• 8 years ago

A human's stomach lining is designed to nestle bacteriophages

Source please?

saalweachter• 8 years ago

Depressing facts of evolution time.

Evolution will totally evolve systems where something is both necessary for the system to keep function and detrimental to the system. If you evolve in the context of "there are tons of viruses just all over the goddamn place", even if the viruses are constantly harming you, there is no reason your body shouldn't come to depend on them for some functions. Eg, the amino acids liberated from your immune system breaking them down could be a vital precursor to some protein or another, even as they continue to hurt you.

For a computer example, imagine writing programs to run on a computer that suffers frequent, intermittent power failures. You could very easily end up with a program with memory leaks that don't matter because the power failures happen too frequently for enough memory to leak for it to be a problem. The frequent power failures are bad, and you would prefer to eliminate them, but you can't because the program has evolved in the context of frequent power failures and can't run for long without them (hell, maybe the memory leaks will end up corrupting on-disk data if you fill up main memory and your hacky memory management system begins double-allocating).

kortex3• 8 years ago

Brilliant analogy. Especially when you consider how heavily nature conserves and multi-utilizes molecules and structures, it's not much of a stretch to see how what starts as a side effect can quickly become an essential machination.

ssivark• 8 years ago

Guess what... one might call such aggressive growth of memory consumption as a “cancer” which kills a system by taking up all available resources! And that cancerous behavior would never have become dangerous till some other “problem” was “solved” :-)

sbhn• 8 years ago

Someone should quickly tell the king that the sky is falling down

chiefalchemist2• 8 years ago

Having just read this article, how might this virus activity be tracked / measured back in time?

If viruses and bacteria are the forerunners of more complex life, wouldn't this be helpful to know?

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/04/are-we-e...

curlcntr• 8 years ago

I saw this quote in Nature last year [1]

"Viruses outnumber prokaryotes by ten to one and are said to kill half of the world's bacteria every two days"

Maybe these two are locked in some sort of existential battle for Earth while everything else is a side show?

[1] H. Ledford, "Five big mysteries about CRISPR’s origins", Nature, 12 January 2017. Volume 541 Number 7637

erikpukinskis2• 8 years ago

Viruses are fundamentally smaller than bacteria, so they’re not really competitors in the zero-sum sense.

Saying they are in an existential battle is like saying birds and insects are in an existential battle. They might kill each other and occupy the same physical space, but one can’t really replace the other in the fitness landscape.

mikeash3• 8 years ago

This is a rare example of extreme understatement in a headline. If the figure given in the article is true, about 800 trillion viruses fall to Earth each day per square kilometer.

andai2• 8 years ago

Hundreds of Sextillions of Viruses Fall from the Sky Each Day

mikeash3• 8 years ago

Doesn't quite have the same ring to it, huh? I think they probably made the right decision to understate it here.

ItsMe0000019• 8 years ago

Per square meter, according to the article, not kilometer.

mikeash3• 8 years ago

The article states 800 million per square meter per day. I converted it to square kilometers to get something with "trillion."

imcoconut• 8 years ago

(There is a small group of researchers who believe viruses may even have come here from outer space, an idea known as panspermia.)

Fred Hoyle [1] is one such researcher. He is an astrophysicist who was the first to demonstrate how elements heavier than helium are synthesized by nuclear reactions in stellar cores. He holds a number of non-mainstream scientific beliefs and one involves the source and evolution of life on earth. He discusses it, along with other evidence challenging the neo-darwinian theory of evolution [2], in "The Intelligent Universe" [3]. I'm reading it now and highly recommend it.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Hoyle [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_synthesis_(20th_century... [3] https://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-Universe-Fred-Hoyle/dp/00...

Trillions of Viruses Fall from the Sky Each Day

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