Webiocosm Pet Link Round Up

Mimivirus
One of my favorite subjects to follow lately has been the Mimivirus. Now the March editon of Discover Magazine has a good article on the mimivirus. The article begins with the following question on the cover: Are viruses the mother of all life? Then, in the process of answering the question (which appears to be YES), the article itself gives a rundown of the history of viruses, the mimivirus, and some of the people who have been working on it. The final paragraph ties it together by stating that "we owe our existence to viruses" and that "As it turns out, they are not the little breakaway shards of our biology—we are, of theirs."
Here are a few links to some of the recent buzz:

Nobel Intent talks directly about the Discover article.

Neil Struthers of Through the Megatonne Marble contemplates what he would do with his genome if he were the unintelligent designer.

Wheat-Dogg proclaims that Yo Mama was a Virus!

As usual, Keats' Telescope has some good insight and links.

My previous posts are here, here, and here.

Braingate / Neural Interface System

CNN-Brain Chip Research Aims for Future Movement 03/02/06

News 14 Carolina Tech Talk - Implant might help paralyzed people 02/07/06

My previous posts are here, and here.

The Mimicking Virus

Last month, when I posted a Mimivirus/Giant Virus(Girus) update, I linked to this article about the Mimivirus and the Emerging Concept of the Giant Virus, which I had only briefly scanned over. I finally read it more closely and found it to be very interesting and therefore again recommend it.

Here is the point that I found to be the most interesting, which I had not yet considered (this is paraphrased from part of the above mentioned article):

The girus (giant virus), Acanthamoeba polyphaga, is also known as the Mimivirus because it was initially misidentified as a Gram-positive bacteria. The two factors responsible for this may be key in its physiology. It is large enough to be seen under a light microscope and it appears to be mildly gram positive on staining. The Mimivirus is known to infect or parasitize certain amoeba. The size of the virus and its polysaccharide and lipopolysaccarhide-like outer layer triggers the phagocytosis of the virus by the amoeba, because it resembles a small prokaryote. It is believed that the mimivirus is probably locked in a sporelike structure and digestion of this outer layer is required for actual infection which occurs through the endocytic vacuole membrane.

There is much more information in the above article about these giruses that I cannot confidently discuss because it is beyond my scope, which is why I again recommend giving it a close look for yourself.

Mimivirus / Giant Virus Update

Back in March I blogged about the Mimivirus, after someone had mentioned it in the comments of a post at The Loom. My post elicited a comment from Jean-Michel Claverie who is the Editor-in-Chief of GiantVirus.org and a coauthor of much of the recently published work I am about to mention. In his comment, he notes that there was some information soon to be ready for publication.

While reading The Loom tonight, I again found more info about the mimivirus, which I assume is at least some of the work JMC had promised. This time it was the focus of Carl Zimmer's post, which he titled the Kanisza Virus. In the post (please see post the for a better presentation) he points to a recent paper, Mimivirus Relatives in the Sargasso Sea by Elodie Ghedin and Jean-Michel Claverie. He also points to an article titled "The Mimivirus and the emerging Concept of the Giant Virus" in which the authors bring us up to date on the most recent information and ideas about Giant viruses. In fact, they propose to introduce a new word, "girus", to recognize the intermediate status of these giant DNA viruses.

As I noted before Giantvirus.org seems to the hub of information for these new findings.

The Mimivirus

Apparently this news is a couple of years old but I had not yet heard until reading the comments from the previously mentioned post in The Loom.
Here are a few links about the Mimivirus which is short for mimicking microbe because it is so large it was initially mistaken for a bacteria. It is consideried by many to qualify as a living organism by standards which generally exclude viruses.

From CBC:

Giant virus discovered in water tower
Last Updated Mon, 31 Mar 2003 12:17:15
PARIS - A massive virus has been found lurking in a British water cooling tower. The virus lives in single-celled organisms called amoebae and may be able to infect humans..Read on

Here is a press release from 3/28/03:

Mimivirus: discovery of a giant virus.A team of French researchers in Marseille has isolated and characterized a virus found in amoebas that is much bigger than any virus ever found to date. This virus, dubbed "Mimivirus" by its discoverers (Bernard La Scola et al., Université de la Méditerranée, Faculté de Médecine, Unité des Rickettsies, CNRS UMR 6020), has a diameter and genetic material about the size of that of some bacteria, much larger than any virus that has been identified as of this time....Read on

Wikipedia has a nice piece as well.

Finally if you are serious about this one, it looks like GiantVirus.org is the place to go.

UPDATE: See the comments for a note from Jean-Michel Claverie, Editor-in-Chief of GiantVirus.org, promising upcoming announcements of new features of the Mimivirus.