Marlene Zuk Quoted in New York Times

Tiny Specks of Misery, Both Vile and Useful

By NATALIE ANGIER
New York Times, January 8, 2008

...It’s easy to hate viruses for those freeloading schemes: nice trick, forcing me to throw up just so you can get out and mingle. How about if I name an entire class of computer problems after you? Yet viruses can seem almost tragic. Many strains, it turns out, are surprisingly delicate.

“Microbes like the anthrax bacterium can remain dormant in the soil for years” and still retain their power to kill, said Marlene Zuk, author of “Riddled With Life” and a professor of biology at the University of California, Riverside. “But viruses are really fragile, and they can’t survive outside their host for very long.” A few hours, maybe a couple of days left unclaimed on a cup or keyboard, and the average viral spore falls apart.

And they are so nakedly needy. They depend on our cells to manufacture every detail of their offspring, to print up new copies of the core instruction booklets, to fabricate the capsid jackets and to deliver those geometrically tidy newborn virions to fresh host shores. Through us, viruses can transcend mere chemistry and lay claim to biology. Many scientists view viruses, with their lack of autonomous means of metabolism or reproduction, as straddling the border between life and nonlife. But if there is ever a case to be made for the liveliness of viruses, it is when they are replicating and mutating and evolving inside us.

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