What Are Viruses?

You are hearing a lot about viruses as the world deals with its first pandemic in a century. By the time the Spanish flu reached its final peak in 1919, the virus that caused it was still an unknown. By that time, the germ theory was well established and accepted. While bacteria had been observed and were understood to be agents of disease, the concept of a virus hadn't entered anyone's thoughts yet.
A virus differs from bacteria in many ways, the most striking difference being that we can't really classify a virus as a living thing. In all living things, the DNA and RNA in each cell is active. A virus has either DNA or RNA, which is inert. It does not active until the virus enters a host cell. The virus is now a living thing, and now it is feeding off the energy produced by the cell it has infected.
Other differences between a virus and bacteria is that a virus has a protein coat, has only DNA or RNA rather than both, and can transfer its DNA or RNA into other cells. A virus is much smaller than bacteria. Bacteria can be seen with the aid of a light microscope. Viruses are even tinier. They have to be, in order to fit inside a cell.
Most viruses infect only a certain species. Some, like our current coronavirus and the swine and bird flus, are able to make the jump to another species. In the case of the swine flu, it jumped from pigs to people. Because they are structured and behave differently than bacteria, antibiotics used to treat a bacterial infection are no good against viruses. How do we stop viruses then?
Antiviral medications exist, but are difficult to develop. Because a virus uses a host cell to replicate, an effective antiviral has to target only the virus and not the host cell. The most common treatment is to let the virus run its course. Eventually, it is hoped, the immune system will be able to overcome the virus. In the meantime, you're likely to experience some discomfort.
Prevention is your best bet. Vaccinations work to train your immune system to kill a virus by giving it a dead one to work on. Good hygiene like washing your hands (you hear that a lot these days) and avoiding close contact with others help reduce the spread of viruses.
Note: every virus is unique. For information on the current COVID-19 coronovirus, visit the CDC or WHO.
This week's information comes from "Microbiology, an Introduction (8th edition)" by Gerard J. Tortora, Berdell R. Funke, and Christine L. Case; the dreaded Wikipedia antiviral drug entry; and the CDC. 

Geysers and Dolls

Geysers are a rare manifestation of the powerful volcanic forces that originate deep within Earth’s mantle. While volcanoes are widespread, geysers are more limited in where they can be found. There are about a thousand worldwide, with the highest concentration- roughly half- found in Yellowstone National Park.

Geyser at Yellowstone's Fountain Paint Pot

A volcano is sort of an opening to the mantle. Molten rock (magma) from the mantle is forced up to the surface by pressure periodically. Magma is also the driving force behind a geyser. Surface water trickles down through the soil and rock and collects in deep underground hot spots. Magma beneath the hot spot is what makes the spot hot. It superheats the water that collects there. Steam, heat, and pressure force the water back to the surface. After blasting to the surface, the water and steam continue surging up into the air. You’ve just witnessed a geyser erupting. The water falls back to the ground and percolates into the soil, starting the process over again. Most geysers erupt randomly, but a few run on a fairly predictable schedule. Most famous is Old Faithful, which erupts every 50 to 100 minutes, depending on local water conditions.

Geyser erupting at Yellowstone

Not all groundwater is forced to the surface so violently. Many times is flows gently as either a hot spring or the hotter boiling spring. If it is sufficiently dirty, you’ll see a bubbling mud pot. Sometimes only steam, not liquid water, hisses from the ground as a fumarole. Yellowstone has all of these geothermal features. Yellowstone is considered an active volcano, with the last eruption occurring about 600,000 years ago. Like the Hawaiian Islands, it sits over leaking magma in the middle of a tectonic plate. 

Fountain Paint Pot, a mud pot

Boiling spring at Yellowstone

Fumarole at Yellowstone

Dragon's Mouth hot spring at Yellowstone

Did you know? Some of Yellowstone's boiling springs are home to bacteria known as extremophiles that are adapted to live in extreme conditions. This week’s information comes from National Geographic and USGS.

The Hidden Community (Part 2 of 2)

Have a look at your lawn. Under the immaculate grass is an invisible world, the soil community. Your yard, like millions of others, is home to an amazing assortment of critters. Most of them you will never see. They range in size from microscopic bacteria and fungi to macroscopic moles and gophers. Each plays its own important role in maintaining ecological balance.

Many soil organisms play a key role in several mineral cycles, including the carbon cycle and nitrogen cycle. I don’t want to say any one organism is more important than any other because they are all cogs on the same great wheel of life, but if I had to I would assign that title to nitrogen-fixing bacteria. These little guys have a symbiotic relationship with plants that allows plants to absorb nitrogen, which is critical to their growth and development. And we all know plants are critical for everything else that’s alive.

Decomposers such as fungi and bacteria consume dead plant and animal material. In doing so, they return carbon and other nutrients that had been locked up in dead material to the soil where it is absorbed by plants and becomes life again.

Below is a chart of a simplified soil food web.

Other soil organisms like earthworms and moles aerate the soil with their tunnels. The tunnels allow for easier movement by air and water, benefiting plants and animals alike. Moles might be ruining your perfect lawn by making look not so nice, but they are actually making it healthier by doing some free landscape work.

Again, information is courtesy of my soil science textbook Soil Science and Management by Edward Plaster.

Did you know? Mushrooms are actually the fruiting bodies of fungi. The “body” of a fungus is actually a collection of long, thread-like cells that can be very compact or quite large. (Thanks to University of California Museum of Paleontology, http://www.ucmp.berkeley.edu/fungi/fungimm.html)

The largest organism in the world is in fact a fungus. It lives in Oregon and is estimated at 1900 to 8650 years old. It covers 2385 acres in Malheur National Forest of eastern Oregon and is known as the Humongous Fungus. (US Forest Service, http://www.fs.usda.gov/Internet/FSE_DOCUMENTS/fsbdev3_033146.pdf)