A Fear We Have Now

What They Are: Viruses are small entities composed of protein and genetic information that can cause mild or severe symptoms in their hosts. Despite their size, viruses have had a significant impact on the history of life. While there is no conventional fossil record of viruses due to their fragility, molecular fossils can be found in the DNA of infected hosts, including humans. Paleovirology, a young field within paleontology, studies the genomes of hosts to trace the history of viruses. By comparing comparable sequences from different organisms, scientists can estimate the age of virus fossils. It has been estimated that 8% of the human genome includes sequences that originally came from viruses.

There are different models for where viruses came from, including the virus-first model, the escape hypothesis, and the regressive model. While viruses can reproduce and evolve, they cannot produce energy or control their internal environment, which puts them in a gray area of semi-living things. Some scientists suggest that viruses might be thought of as vines that wrap around the tree of life. Regardless of their classification, viruses have a place in the greater picture of life on Earth.

Covid, move over! The variola virus, responsible for smallpox, is one of the most successful monsters created by evolution in terms of its ability to harm humans. The devastation caused by this virus was so severe that it compelled humankind to act globally for the first time. This victory over the ancient powers of nature was made possible by cows. Variola is a virus that seeks only to reproduce itself and has been found in Egyptian mummies and in writing from India and China dating back 3000 years. Smallpox killed up to a third of Japan's population 1300 years ago and became one of the major causes of death worldwide by the 1600s. In the late 18th century, it killed 400,000 people annually in Europe. Even in the 20th century, it killed at least 300 million people. Smallpox is a recurring monster that kills, maims, and disrupts societies. The virus is highly infectious and infects the cells lining the throat, killing them to cause chaos and trick the body into giving it a lift. Variola infects a crucial cell of the immune system, the dendritic cells, which enter the lymphatic system and activate heavy defenses. Variola quietly infects civilian and immune cells for about 12 days before starting its attack for real. The virus spreads everywhere and infects billions of cells all over the body, including capillaries, which die in great numbers. The immune system struggles to wake up, and variola deactivates interferons, which stuns the anti-virus side of the defense system. Variola spreads everywhere and infects billions of cells all over the body, including capillaries, which die in great numbers. The critical phase begins as the infected person burns up in a high fever, and thousands of battlegrounds drain their blood of fluid that streams into their tissue and organs. Blood clotting appears all over the body, while floods of toxins from dead cells build up and can cause organs to fail. About a third of people who contract smallpox do not survive, and survivors are likely to be branded by scars and may even lose their eyesight or hearing. Humanity eradicated smallpox in 1980 after a global effort that involved creating a global "smallpox news network" and vaccinating people with material from cowpox, a variant that affected cows. The innovation was simple, instead of using the real virus to train the immune system, use a related virus, cowpox, that was only mild but also gave immunity. Today, we live in a time of enlightenment, and none of us alive today are haunted by the specter of smallpox. However, we must not forget that diseases might reawaken, or new ones might be brewing in jungles, wet markets, or laboratories, ready to strike us once more. We owe it to those who will come after us to make sure the light of protection from these monsters does not go out.