This video was sponsored by lastpass Hey there, welcome to Life Noggin! Getting sick is the absolute worst, but it’s
just a part of being well, alive. On Earth every living organism has at least
one virus that can infect it, from plants and animals, to bacteria and single-celled
archaea. But what about non-living things?You’ve
probably heard that viruses aren’t technically alive, so can a virus catch another virus? Before we get into the nitty gritty, I wanna
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try LastPass today, and now back to the episode! so can a virus catch another virus? Well, until recently, the answer was no. Viruses are simple, submicrosopic parasites,
a hundred times smaller than bacteria. Without a metabolism or proteins for transcription
and replication, they’re little more than zombies, borrowing life from other creatures. So if viruses can’t even keep themselves
alive, how can they sustain another? Nature, it seems, is always surprising us. In the early 2000s, scientists discovered
an exceptional virus that altered our understanding of life itself. At first, experts assumed it was bacteria,
but what they’d actually found was a giant virus, so large it could be glimpsed with
a simple microscope. Inside, this virus had many more genes than
normal, encoding for proteins, metabolic pathways, even replication machinery. Experts named it the mimivirus, short for
mimicking microbe, and soon they began to find others just like it. That’s when things got really meta. Because while the mimivirus was a surprise,
the discovery of its relative, the so-called mamavirus, was a bombshell. Slightly larger than mimi, the mamavirus turned
out to be hiding an itsy bitsy virus of its own. With just 21 genes, this little fella, named
Sputnik, is the first example of a virus infecting a virus infecting an amoeba. Since then, dozens of other virophages have
been found, and while there’s still a lot we don’t know about this madness, the basics
are familiar. After infecting its first host, Sputnik releases
its DNA into the amoeba. Unable to reproduce on its own, it then attaches
to an already-present mamavirus, injecting its genetic material into that second host
too. Once inside, this foreign DNA hijacks the
host’s ‘viral factory’ so it can begin to replicate, ultimately making it harder
for the mamavirus to do the same. It’s David and Goliath on a miniscule scale. Today, we know virophages can infect both
mama and mimiviruses, as well as plenty of others. As such, some consider them viral parasites,
representing a whole new class of virus, while others think they are too basic to be called
even that. Whatever they are, they’re probably important. And we keep learning more and more about virophages
and giant viruses. In fact, just last year, a paper was published
stating that some giant viruses, called Pandoraviruses, are so large they can encode thousands of
proteins, 90 percent of which are not seen anywhere else on Earth. Plus, not only do giant viruses appear to
create genes, they also appear to steal them. Sputnik and other virophages have remarkably
similar genes to their hosts, which has experts wondering if these giant viruses are defending
themselves by stealing genetic material from their viral parasites. All that is still up for debate, but the idea
that viruses can create and transfer genes does fit well with another theory. More than a billion years ago, a giant DNA-based
virus is thought to have infected a budding eukaryotic cell, somehow creating the first
cell nucleus. Like I said, nature is full of surprises. Sometimes they’re scary surprises, but still. So are there any questions about the body
that you have for us? Let me know now in the comment section below
and your question could become a future video. As always my name is Blocko! This has been Life Noggin! Don’t forget to keep on thinking.
