Posts

Showing posts from March, 2020

Bad Virus, Good Virus

Image
We always think that virus is a bad thing, especially nowadays in this Covid-19 global pandemic. As far as we know, it brings nothing but diseases, from common cold to HIV. But science has shown that there are always two sides in everything, including virus. It turns out virus not only has benefits to our body functions, but even our species can't survive until now if not because of virus. Virus is a very simple organism that only consists mainly of envelope in the outside as outer layer, and genetic material in the inside covered with capsid as inner layer. The genetic material can be RNA or DNA, depends on the virus species. Virus lives as a parasite who uses its host cell to survive and replicate, and it has been around since a very long time ago, some says that it has already existed since the beginning of life itself. Since millions of years ago, virus from Retrovirus family, whose one of its member is the famous HIV virus, had attacked our ancestors. Retrovirus at...