Images of Viruses

© Russell Kightley Media (rkm.com.au) Computer Virus Picture

© ISTOCKPHOTO/SEBASTIAN KAULITZKI - Image of HIV Virus

 

Photographer: SEBASTIAN KAULITZKI. Agency: dreamstime.com

Quotes for Viruses

It seems likely that most if not all the genetic information in any organism is carried by nucleic acid - usually by DNA, although certain small viruses use RNA as their genetic material. 
Francis Crick 

I think computer viruses should count as life. I think it says something about human nature that the only form of life we have created so far is purely destructive. We've created life in our own image. 
Stephen Hawking 

The risk from viruses is an unanswered question - and it won't be answered until you have had organs transplanted into humans over many years. 

Ian Smith 

My general theory since 1971 has been that the word is literally a virus, and that it has not been recongized as such because it has achieved a state of relatively stable symbiosis with its human host; that is to say, the word virus (the Other Half) has established itself so firmly as an accepted part of human organism that it can now sneer at gangster viruses like smallpox and turn then into the Pasteur Institute.

William S. Burroughs

Definitions of Viruses

Virus (Computers)

A virus is a program written to cause mischief or damage to a computer system.  A mild virus might only be a slight nuisance, or even amusing.  However, most viruses do damage, whether to your files, your registry, or even your hardware.  Viruses are hard to detect, easy to propagate, and difficult to remove.  Your computer can pick up a virus when you copy a seemingly normal file from a diskette or download it from the Internet. 

Virus (Organic)

A virus (from the Latin virus meaning toxin or poison) is a sub-microscopic infectious agent that is unable to grow or reproduce outside a host cell. Viruses infect all cellular life. The first known virus, tobacco mosaic virus, was discovered by Martinus Beijernick in 1899, and now more than 5000 types of virus have been described. The study of viruses is known as virology, and is a branch of microbiology. 

Viruses consist of two or three parts: all viruses have genes made from either DNA or RNA, long molecules that carry genetic information; all have a protein coat that protects these genes; and some have an envelope of fat that surrounds them when they are outside a cell. Viruses vary in shape from simple helical (see source 1) and icosahedral (see source 2) shapes, to more complex structures. They are about 100 times smaller than bacteria. The origins of viruses are unclear: some may have evolved from plasmids (see source 3) - pieces of DNA that can move between cells - others may have evolved from bacteria. 

Source 1 Source 2 

         

Source 3

  

Viruses spread in many ways: different species of virus use different methods. For example, plant viruses are often transmitted from plant to plant by insects that feed on sap, such as aphids, while animal viruses can be carried by blood-sucking insects. These disease-bearing organisms are know as vectors. Influenza viruses are spread by coughing and sneezing, and others such as norovirus (see source 4), are transmitted by the faecal-oral route, when they contaminate hands, food or water. Rotavirus (see source 5) is often spread by direct contact with infected children. HIV is one of several viruses that are transmitted through sex. 

Source 4

 

Source 5     

Not all viruses cause diseases, as many viruses reproduce without causing any obvious harm to the infected organism. Some viruses such as HIV can cause life-long or chronic infections, and the viruses continue to replicate in the body despite the hosts' defense mechanisms. However, viral infections in animals usually cause an immune response, which can completely eliminate a virus. These immune responses can also be reproduced by vaccines that give life-long immunity to a viral infection. Micro-organisms such as bacteria also have defences against viral infections, such as restriction modification systems. Antibodies have no effect on viruses, but antiviral drugs have been developed to treat life-threatening and more minor infections.

Inspiration

Thinking about viruses, and being able to create them Max came across this advertisement of Domestos. This would be a great way to show viruses rather than just talking about them.

Computer Viruses would look like chips whereas viruses within us would look more organic. So there is a difference between the viruses. 

Thinking about the quotation, we will be researching into viruses and about where the term came from as well as positive and negative quotations in relation to ideas about viruses.

Our Roles: 

Max - Create the viruses in 3D using 3D Max

Afiza - Create textures for the viruses using Photoshop and design some viruses

Chosen Brief

Keyword:

Viruses

Quotation: 

‘Well, I was born in 1930 and I remember going to the New York Worlds fair in 1939 and at that time the future was wonderful; six lane highways controlled by electrical machinery and electro-mechanical this and that. It was a grand future and we would all have four day work weeks or three day work weeks because machines would do most of our labour and things would just get better and better for everybody because we would all benefit from this power and control. Things have turned out so vastly different from that. Within six years of that the Dresden in Tokyo had been fire bombed and Russia and Nagasaki had been A-bombed and the Jews in Germany and Eastern Europe had been slaughtered and things went to hell and continued to go to hell. What more can I say.’

- Kenneth Knowlton, 2002