Linus Pauling Quotes

The more cases of Ebola infection we have, the more chances there are for the virus to mutate in a particular way that adapts it well to living in humans, replicating in humans, and perhaps transmitting from human to human.

I wanted to be a genetic engineer. That was my goal in college. I wanted to figure out what the codon sequence was that causes replication in a cardio myopathic virus. That was my goal.

Viruses have to live somewhere. They can only replicate in living creatures. So, when the Ebola virus disappears between outbreaks, it has to be living in some reservoir host, presumably some species of animal.

We're shaking loose viruses and dislodging them from their natural ecological limitations, places where they aren't very abundant and have competition, even within a single animal. We introduce them into a new, rich habitat called the human population, where they can flourish more abundantly and cause more trouble.

The virus that causes AIDS is the trickiest pathogen scientists have ever confronted. It mutates furiously, it has decoys to evade the immune system, it attacks the very cells that are trying to fight it, and it quickly hides itself in your genome.

Physical studies of DNA had, of course, been under way for some years before analysis of virus particles began.

Changes... can only be effected by alterations in the original. The only thing not prerecorded in a prerecorded universe are the prerecordings themselves. The copies can only repeat themselves word for word. A virus is a copy. You can pretty it up, cut it up, scramble it - it will reassemble in the same form.

What perhaps should receive more attention is the effect of the treatment on the virus.

In San Francisco, I found Warren Levinson, who had set up a program to study Rous Sarcoma Virus, an archetype for what we now call retroviruses. At the time, the replication of retroviruses was one of the great puzzles of animal virology. Levinson, Levintow and I joined forces in the hope of solving that puzzle.

But what has been pretty good about the coronaviruses in general is they keep their structural pieces very similar. What do I mean by that? There's certain - the outer coat, the envelope, and the inside part of the virus has stayed very constant.

The model of modern Western civilization is the virus: the pure bit of information, which turns its environment into endless reproductions of itself.

Computer viruses are alive.

DNA has been aptly described as the first three-dimensional Xerox machine.

There is nothing so patient, in this world or any other, as a virus searching for a host.

A virus has three purposes: to duplicate, to infiltrate and to spread from one host to the next. Ultimately, even a single virus can shut down an entire system.

Ideas and products and messages and behaviors spread just like viruses do.

Ignorance is a virus. Once it starts spreading it can only be cured by reason. For the sake of humanity, we must be that cure.

A decadent civilization compromises with its disease, cherishes the virus infecting it, loses its self-respect.

Whenever one does extraordinary things, someone is bound to try to repeat them for themselves. It's the way of the world.

While the State becomes inflated and hypertrophied in order to obtain a firm enough grip upon individuals, but without succeeding, the latter, without mutual relationships, tumble over one another like so many liquid molecules, encountering no central energy to retain, fix and organize them.

It has not escaped our notice that the specific pairing we have postulated immediately suggests a possible copying mechanism for the genetic material.

We are machines built by DNA whose purpose is to make more copies of the same DNA. ... This is exactly what we are for. We are machines for propagating DNA, and the propagation of DNA is a self-sustaining process. It is every living object's sole reason for living.

We have a name for things that don't copy themselves: dead.

Words are memes that can be pronounced.

All other species on this planet are gene machines only. They don't imitate at all well; we alone are gene machines and meme machines as well.