<story><title>Why soap works so well on most viruses</title><url>https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1236549305189597189.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>koeng</author><text>I work with some groups trying to build synthetic cells, and honestly there isn’t even a good definition for what a “cell” is or what “life” is in the scientific communities. The best proxy I can come up with, which is universally true on earth, is that life is anything that fully encodes ribosomes and can replicate (there aren’t any discovered exceptions to that yet, though some are close). Very intellectually unsatisfying, but so far factually true for anything generally considered “living”.&lt;p&gt;Evolution&amp;#x2F;competition between ribosome encoding and capsid encoding organisms[1] has driven a lot of cool stuff to be developed: for example, bacteria and archaea (+ eukaryotes) gained DNA separately (presumably from viral infection) and retroviruses enables placentas.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;m&amp;#x2F;pubmed&amp;#x2F;19845628&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;m&amp;#x2F;pubmed&amp;#x2F;19845628&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>Anthony-G</author><text>&amp;gt; The soap dissolves the fat membrane and the virus falls apart like a house of cards and &amp;quot;dies&amp;quot;, or rather, we should say it becomes inactive as viruses aren’t really alive.&lt;p&gt;I always presumed that viruses, similar to other microorganisms, are alive. Until reading the above quote, I had never considered the idea there was any question about this. I was intrigued by the concept that they many not really be alive so looked up the Wikipedia article [1] which says that&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Viruses are considered by some to be a life form, because they carry genetic material, reproduce, and evolve through natural selection, although they lack key characteristics (such as cell structure) that are generally considered necessary to count as life. Because they possess some but not all such qualities, viruses have been described as &amp;quot;organisms at the edge of life&amp;quot;, and as replicators.&lt;p&gt;One of the Wikipedia references is &lt;i&gt;Are viruses alive? The replicator paradigm sheds decisive light on an old but misguided question&lt;/i&gt; [2] which looks at different replication mechanisms as a continuum rather than a simple  “life vs non-life” dichotomy.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Virus&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Virus&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pmc&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;PMC5406846&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pmc&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;PMC5406846&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>azeirah</author><text>It reminds me of a philosophy class where the goal is to find an accurate and all-capturing definition of what a chair is.&lt;p&gt;It is tremendously difficult, perhaps impossible.</text></comment>
<story><title>Why soap works so well on most viruses</title><url>https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1236549305189597189.html</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>koeng</author><text>I work with some groups trying to build synthetic cells, and honestly there isn’t even a good definition for what a “cell” is or what “life” is in the scientific communities. The best proxy I can come up with, which is universally true on earth, is that life is anything that fully encodes ribosomes and can replicate (there aren’t any discovered exceptions to that yet, though some are close). Very intellectually unsatisfying, but so far factually true for anything generally considered “living”.&lt;p&gt;Evolution&amp;#x2F;competition between ribosome encoding and capsid encoding organisms[1] has driven a lot of cool stuff to be developed: for example, bacteria and archaea (+ eukaryotes) gained DNA separately (presumably from viral infection) and retroviruses enables placentas.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;m&amp;#x2F;pubmed&amp;#x2F;19845628&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;m&amp;#x2F;pubmed&amp;#x2F;19845628&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item><item><author>Anthony-G</author><text>&amp;gt; The soap dissolves the fat membrane and the virus falls apart like a house of cards and &amp;quot;dies&amp;quot;, or rather, we should say it becomes inactive as viruses aren’t really alive.&lt;p&gt;I always presumed that viruses, similar to other microorganisms, are alive. Until reading the above quote, I had never considered the idea there was any question about this. I was intrigued by the concept that they many not really be alive so looked up the Wikipedia article [1] which says that&lt;p&gt;&amp;gt; Viruses are considered by some to be a life form, because they carry genetic material, reproduce, and evolve through natural selection, although they lack key characteristics (such as cell structure) that are generally considered necessary to count as life. Because they possess some but not all such qualities, viruses have been described as &amp;quot;organisms at the edge of life&amp;quot;, and as replicators.&lt;p&gt;One of the Wikipedia references is &lt;i&gt;Are viruses alive? The replicator paradigm sheds decisive light on an old but misguided question&lt;/i&gt; [2] which looks at different replication mechanisms as a continuum rather than a simple  “life vs non-life” dichotomy.&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Virus&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Virus&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pmc&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;PMC5406846&amp;#x2F;&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov&amp;#x2F;pmc&amp;#x2F;articles&amp;#x2F;PMC5406846&amp;#x2F;&lt;/a&gt;</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>angel_rs</author><text>The boundary between &amp;quot;life&amp;quot; and &amp;quot;not life&amp;quot; has some fascinating organisms&amp;#x2F;structures[0]:&lt;p&gt;&lt;pre&gt;&lt;code&gt;  Virions
  Viroids
  Satellites
  Prions
  Defective interfering particles (DIPs)
&lt;/code&gt;&lt;/pre&gt;
I would also add t-RNA[1] to that list. It can almost replicate by itself, and sits right in the middle between &amp;quot;data&amp;quot; (DNA&amp;#x2F;RNA) and &amp;quot;code&amp;quot; (a small machine that can selectively hold an amino acid)&lt;p&gt;[0] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Virus_classification#Subviral_agents&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Virus_classification#Subviral_...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Transfer_RNA&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&amp;#x2F;wiki&amp;#x2F;Transfer_RNA&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>