BIKERS CLUB APRIL 2020 ISSUE | Page 23

B I K E R S C L U B ® | www.bikersclub.in SHOUT OUT An Infinity of Viruses What is Virus? A virus is a submicroscopic infectious agent that replicates only inside the living cells of an organism. Viruses can infect all types of life forms, from animals and plants to microorganisms, including bacteria and archaea. How viruses spread, and do they make us sick? Viruses are the most common biological entities on Earth. Experts estimate there are around 10²³ of them, and if they were all lined up they would stretch from one side of the galaxy to the other. You can think of them as nature's own nanotechnology, molecular machines with sizes on the nanometer scale, equipped to invade on the cell of other organisms and hijack them to reproduce themselves. While the great majority are harmless to humans, some can make you sick and some can even be deadly.