Re: Life: Turn it upside down!

On 09/04/2024 23:41, Ernest Major wrote:

On 09/04/2024 19:17, Arkalen wrote:

>
Sorry, I thought you'd excluded viruses with the "step down from there" bit. The gulf is still huge between viruses and cellular life but I guess it's true the gulf between cellular life and nonlife is smaller if you include them. The issue in terms of abiogenesis is that it's unclear whether they're true intermediates or if they arose after or parallel to cellular life.

 It's conceivable that all three models for the origins of viruses (relicts of pre-cellular life, highly reduced descendants of parasitic cells, rogue genes) are true, for different groups of viruses.
 Mimivirus has a bigger genome and more genes than some cellular organisms, including some genes involved in metabolism and in protein synthesis. This, and nucleocytoplasmic large DNA viruses in general, seem to go some of the way in filling the gap between viruses in general and cellular organisms.
 

I agree with all of that. Just to clarify: when I talk about the huge gulf in complexity between viruses and cellular life I'm not talking about genome size, I'm talking very specifically about everything cellular life is that viruses aren't, with cellular structure & components, metabolism, translation mechanisms, all the resulting behavior... I don't think even mimivirus begins to compete in that field but I'm happy to learn more.