JH+virus+article

Questions:

9 - !0. How can mutation and **sex** lead to evolution (origin of new species)? mutations alter the content of the genes: sex shuffles the pack, creating new gene combinations that all go in to the evolution process.
 * 1) "if we are unlucky..." the author writes we will see evolution in action. What does she mean? Why would it by unlucky to see the avian virus evolve. She means that if the virus evolves into a new hybrid virus that it could spell trouble for humans because it has been seen to be very deadly killing half of the people infected with in deadly
 * 2) Define parasite. an organism that lives on or in an organism of another species, known as the host, from the body of which it obtains nutriment
 * 3) Define gene. the basic physical unit of heredity; a linear sequence of nucleotides along a segment of DNA that provides the coded instructions for synthesis of RNA, which, when translated into protein, leads to the expression of hereditary character.
 * 4) She compares viruses to tiny parcels. Why? How are these parcels mailed? She describes them as tiny parcels because they can be "mailed to other people, either directly, through sneezes, feces, semen and the like, or indirectly, through carriers like insects.
 * 5) 20 million people died of the Spanish Flu during World War II. Yet the author claims to know that this flu virus was particularly deadly not that it was a normal virus but because of the war and wartime "deprivation" people were more likely to get sick and die. What two pieces of evidence indicate this was a very deadly virus unlike the normal flu virus. it has killed more than half of the people that it infected and it has been seen to infect young healthy people.
 * 6) What is H5N1? it is the virus called the Avian Flu with 8 genes
 * 7) Since H5N1 has killed mostly birds, why are we worried about it? becuase it is liable to mutate and and become easier to transfer from person to person.
 * 8) Two processes could change the H5N1 in a deadly way: sex and mutation. What is viral sex and how could it change the virus? What is viral mutation and how could this change the virus? viral sex is when two viruses have sex and create a new virus the contain genes from both viruses and "acquire accidental changes to its genetic material - in such a way that it becomes able to travel between people"