I appreciate that I can still be awed when I learn about science. At a nature center recently I flipped through the first pages of a children’s science book and read a short passage about how viruses are not considered living things but may be descended from a living thing that later became nonliving through evolution.
I have studied biology for many years but this is something I had never thought much about. Reading further online I encountered the following passage:
“They may represent genetic elements that gained the ability to move between cells. They may represent previously free-living organisms that became parasites. They may be the precursors of life as we know it.”
(http://www.nature.com/scitable/topicpage/the-origins-of-viruses-14398218)
Later I clicked on a blurb about “Planet Nine.” I thought it was more fake news (or hopelessly uninformed journalism) but it was from a reputable site. There may be a ninth planet, much more exciting than Pluto ever was, that is an ice giant orbiting 20 times the distance that Neptune is from the Sun. And its existence would help explain some anomalies that currently pose a problem.
Speculation over this planet, as well as all three viral origin possibilities and their implications, is mind-blowing! These topics have an inherent fascination. But somehow they are drowned out by the churn of the day’s news. Still, when they do break through, they remain absolutely gripping. Sometimes it just takes a children’s book to do it.
Included: Don’t end up like me. Never trust anyone. Read your olive oil label carefully. It may be mostly vegetable oil, and you may be a dupe.
pseudoisaac 