A.  Daily Blog

B.  Useful Materials

I am disappointed to say that this chapter, though the basis of all life and so on (as Dr. Weber has told us many times), I don't have many amazing links to story such as the enzyme that made Mighty Mouse. Perhaps I'm not looking hard enough or maybe the subject is so specific that I can't find any links on cracked.com. Though, I did find this interesting topic about how a zombie invasion would occur. All right, truth be told, it's not really scientific reasons because some killjoy (as some people called him) mentioned that the all the viruses aren't possible... scientifically. But, anyway, for the rage virus, this is his statement.

Rage viruses: "Super viruses" that would impair only one's higher cognitive functions and pain responses isn't possible. In cases of such sudden and drastic changes, the typical pathogen (such as ebola, hanta, or marburg viruses) are typically lethal, the main reason is that the unlucky recipient can't adapt via immunity or cellular compatability before "minor" symptoms like...say...hemorrhagic fever and systemic failure. To adopt aspects from another virus, it must first have similar coding (RNA or DNA based) or too many transcription errors occur. Considering that complete and adaptable transcription is essential for viral replication, if that doesn't happen, should a virion result, it'd be dead. Regarding CKD (Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease), it's caused from prions (proteinacious infectious particle) which are variant proteins that are inserted into the recipient's cells similarily to viral insertion. All prion diseases are collectively known as transmissible spongiform encephalopathies (TSEs), are untreatable and fatal with symptoms manifesting the most notable symptoms as it's in the worst stages. 

See? Total killjoy? Well, anyway. What he stated had to pertain to DNA and RNA coding for viruses, which I bolded. Moving along, he states that to adopt aspects from another virus, similar coding from RNA or DNA must be there lest transcription errors occur. He goes on to mention that transcription is essential for viral replication. So, I realize that this isn't exactly a good source from a random person on the internet, I have looked up how viruses worked.

All right, so, in this link it talks about DNA virus replication, which pertains to the above topic. Moving along, virus genomes are stated to contain information on ensure replication of viral genomes, packaging of genomes into virions (single virus particle with protein coat) and alter the structure of host cell. Strategies of virus replication include making mRNAs that can be translated into a protein by the host cell translation, replicate its genome and host enzymes for mRNA synthesis and DNA replication are nuclear and the  virus needs to avail itself of these enzymes to get inside the nucleus. Then, the DNA replicates and bam! Virus is spread!

...But, yeah. Zombies.

On to a more boring topic, the PubMed article. Too lazy to even put the whole title of the text, I will explain this PubMed article to the best of my extent. So, it starts off saying how integration into the nuclear genome of germ lines can lead up to inheritance of retroviral genes. Then, by silico screening of genomes from animals, they got ten non-retroviral familes. Analysis of EVEs (endogenous viral elements) revealed information about the orgin and evolution of various virus groups. Several elements expressed mRNA. Their findings esablished that genetic material of various types can enter the animal germ line and indicate a significant evolutionary role for gene flow.