The term “media virus” was meant to convey the way ideas could spread in a world with more interactive communications. A real, biological virus has a novel, never-before-seen protein shell that lets it travel through a person’s bloodstream unrecognized. (If the body identifies the virus, it sends antibodies to attack it.) The virus then latches onto a cell in the host organism and injects its genetic code within. The code works its way to the nucleus of the cell and seeks to interpolate itself into the cell’s DNA. The next time the cell reproduces, it replicates the virus’s code along with its
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