According to a BBC article written by Amber Dance and published on Sept. 15, 2024, there are billions and maybe trillions of bacteriophage (pronounced bakteeria faazh) viruses interacting with the bacteria in our gut. Wow.
They ‘interact’ with the bacteria by injecting their DNA, or RNA as the case may be, into the bacteria along with some random genetic material that they picked up from some other bacteria. Yeah, gene swapping.
That’s what they do, that’s their lifestyle, if they have a lifestyle. That’s all they do basically is run around and inject DNA. But hey a machine could do that. So maybe they’re a machine? That question remains unanswered. Maybe they are the bridge between life and non-life. Can’t replicate, no metabolism. What the heck.
Anyways, whatever they are, they share data in the micro-world, a form of communication using gene transferral as the language. That’s beneficial to both parties. The bacteria gets some new genes to play with and the virus is able to make babies. Ha, ha virus babies, just like mom, a 20 sided miniature oil derrick with a ‘head’. And now that it’s been altered (infected), the bacteria can act different, it can find some new innovative way of doing something, it becomes more adaptable. Get it? The viruses are actually helping the bacteria by sharing genetic information.
The title of the BBC article is “Meet the microbiome's 'dance partner': The hidden kingdom of viruses living in your gut.” That’s pretty descriptive and Amber Dance does a good job of describing the intricacy and subtlety of the micro-world in her short article. Viruses are the smallest and simplest members of the microbes in our gut and the bacteria must appear like a new found planet or island in the sea, where they can make landfall, connect with the outer surface and inject their DNA into the cytoplasm. The bacteria, for some strange reason, accepts this and replicates it, using it’s own machinery. Exactly what the virus couldn’t do.
Replication services is what the virus needed and replication is what the bacteria can offer. The virus doesn’t really want to kill the bacteria, although sometimes it does, it just wants some assistance and it can offer, in return, some random genetic information garnered from another bacteria. That’s the deal.
So far the researchers are not sure how many species of bacteriophages (aka viruses) there are. They’ve found 140,000 so far and they suspect there’s way more. Way more means who knows how many and what their function is and how they affect us. “Viruses infecting bacteria are thought to be the most abundant biological entities on earth.” according to this article in Nature. Wow again. Imagine the level of symbiosis at work there.
All of nature works by symbiosis. It should be no great surprise that the viruses in our gut are in a symbiotic relationship with the bacteria. And the bacteria are working intimately with cells from our own body - another dance. Altogether they comprise a ’microbiome’, all the microbes that live on us and in us. We are like a world with our own biosphere and our own critters.
Planet earth has a biosphere too and it operates on symbiosis too. All the species combine to form a web of life. This is well known. Human beings have societies, worlds of our own making comprised of people interacting and sharing and sometimes harming each other just like the viruses in our gut. But we’ve kind of lost our symbiotic tendencies. That’s unfortunate. Symbiosis is alot of fun and a brilliant strategy for survival that has worked for billions of years. It’s a way of getting along in a diverse and complex world.
Our lack of symbiotic spirit is most evident in our politics. Destroy and defeat is the strategy there. No accommodation and no communication. We think it’s normal but it’s actually unnatural. It disrupts the harmony of the system and creates tension for everybody. How can that be good?
Like the viruses in our gut we need to inject some genetic information into the conversation. We need to share. We need some useful wisdom around here. Humans are not cyborgs and humans are not droids. We are natural members of a biosphere based on symbiosis. It’s called nature. It’s the mother of us all.
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from Cacao Yoga in Vancouver 00-7:57
viruses r us