Virus - an overview (define)

In keeping with the idea of my machine moving through a space or area with a particular starting point yet no definite end point or length of time for inhabitation I'm finding it appropriate to study viruses including what defines a virus and how they behave and respond under certain circumstances. My machine is similar in many ways to a virus in that it contains different behaviours as well as varying responses, this is also according to the space or environment that it is in.

Trying to relate the two more clearly with more of a basis I began to do some basic research on what exactly a virus is -

- Latin translated as 'toxin' or 'poison'
- an infectious element
- capability to grow, reproduce, spread and infect
- infect cellular life forms
- types: animal, plant & bacterial
- do not have cells but do have genes and are able to evolve
- resultant is immune response & disease
- noxious substance
- agent that causes infection or disease
- parasitic reproduction capabilities
- distribution: bodily contact, fluids, injection, soil, air, ingestion
- quarantine as a method on limiting contagious spread
- no single mechanism can account for the origin
- virus life cycle

• attachment - binding between viral protein and host cellular surface
• penetration - virus enters host cell
• uncoating - process by which the viral enzymes are released
• replication - basic assembly of the viral particle with host cell