Why so elusive? Because viruses are vanishingly minuscule, simple but ingenious, anomalous, economical, and in some cases fiendishly subtle. Expert opinion even divides on the conundrum of whether viruses are alive. If they aren’t, then at the very least they’re mechanistic shortcuts on the principle of life itself. They parasitize. They compete. They attack, they evade. They struggle. They obey the same basic imperatives as all living creatures—to survive, to multiply, to perpetuate their lineage—and they do it using intricate strategies shaped by Darwinian natural selection. They evolve. The
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I love viruses!
