viruses

7.1 (p.122-124) and Avian Flu p. 125

1. Why are viruses not exactly living or nonliving? They are sort of both because outside a host they are just chemicals but when they are in a host they replicate inside cells and are basically living 2. Give some examples of diseases caused by viruses. Colds, flu, polio, rabies 3. What is the basic structure of a virus? (The two parts and their function) outer capsid composed of protein units and an inner core of nucleic acid the nucleic acid codes for the protein units in the capsid 4. Why are viruses like microscopic pirates? Commandeering the metabolic machinery of a host cell. 5. Why are viruses considered parasites? Because they hurt the host and in no way help them at all 6. Why are viruses considered OBLIGATE parasites? they have to be parasites they dont have to be a choice if they want to live 7. Why do viruses ALWAYS cause disease?

8. How do viruses "emerge" and "spread" each year? Give examples. Viruses can start with animal reservoirs and its really hard to control. Viruses also mutate and change making old vaccines no longer work like the flu. Viruses like the avian bird flu are spread bird to man and then man to man 9. What is a virus vector? Give examples, a virus vector is a something that carries disease from an infected invdividual to healthy individual. Like mosquiotes and sars and monkeys and ebola 10. What is the relationship of bird flu to birds? Which is passed to humans from birds 11. How does bird flu infect humans? Direct contact with the bird or there feces 12. What is a pandemic? An epidemic on a very large scale 13. Why is there fear that bird flu could cause a pandemic? Because birds travel fast and migrate and everyone eats chicken that is shipped from halfway around the world. Americans eat chic 14. What action can we take to prevent a bird flu pandemic? Test all of our birds that we import to make sure they don’t have it