That’s an interesting question and I have to say that I don’t know. I’m not sure if anyone knows the answer to that. The flu is a virus, and classified as ‘non-living’ as it needs to infect cells to reproduce and spread. On its own, a virus is just a little bundle of genetic material that can’t do anything. Once it gets into a cell it can make many copies of itself which can be released to infect other cells.
I would think that the very first virus was created a VERY long time ago, shortly after the first single-celled organisms occurred. As these organisms (a bit like bacteria) evolved into bigger things then the virus would have evolved too, allowing it to infect these new cells.
Now there are viruses which infect bacteria, plants and all different animals. The things that a virus can infect are called its ‘host range’. I think the host range of the Influenza virus (flu) is mammals (I can’t find it at the moment, but you hear of flu in horses, pigs, birds, humans). This would mean that the first flu virus must have evolved sometime after the first mammals appeared.
Hi singy123! Yes, “flu” or influenza, is caused by a virus. Like Aimee said, viruses cause disease by multiplying within the cells of their host. Humans are the usual hosts of the types of flu you are talking about, but flu viruses can jump between species. That’s why you might have heard of bird flu and swine flu – these flu viruses jumped from birds to humans or from pigs to humans.
Viruses, including flu viruses, evolve very quickly. This is because humans and other animals very quickly builds up an immunity to a particular flu virus after they are infected. If a virus did not change and evolve, it could only infect everyone in the world once before everyone is immune to it. The virus would then die out (technically it would be extinct!). So there is tremendous evolutionary pressure on flu viruses to change so that they can continue to reinfect everyone year after year.
Research that looks at the DNA of viruses suggests they have been around for several billion years. But this research is complicated. Because viruses change all the time and really quickly, it’s hard to tell from their DNA exactly how they first came about.
Aimee and Bridget have this one covered. It’s interesting that the virus is doing what it knows best – reproducing itself. It turns out this is bad news for us, but the virus has found a very effective way of staying alive. The first flu virus was one that was able to reproduce and evade our natural defences – pretty clever stuff given how sophisticated our immune system is. Of course it wouldn’t have just sprung into existence. Flu viruses we see today probably had version millions of years ago that were different, and probably simpler. It’s taken a while for them to become as complex as they are, and they have no doubt evolved with us. They don’t want to kill us (they don’t “want” anything – they just reproduce), they just hitch a free ride on our complex metabolism. Sometimes they can make us very sick, and we have to use science to fight that.
That’s an interesting question and I have to say that I don’t know. I’m not sure if anyone knows the answer to that. The flu is a virus, and classified as ‘non-living’ as it needs to infect cells to reproduce and spread. On its own, a virus is just a little bundle of genetic material that can’t do anything. Once it gets into a cell it can make many copies of itself which can be released to infect other cells.
I would think that the very first virus was created a VERY long time ago, shortly after the first single-celled organisms occurred. As these organisms (a bit like bacteria) evolved into bigger things then the virus would have evolved too, allowing it to infect these new cells.
Now there are viruses which infect bacteria, plants and all different animals. The things that a virus can infect are called its ‘host range’. I think the host range of the Influenza virus (flu) is mammals (I can’t find it at the moment, but you hear of flu in horses, pigs, birds, humans). This would mean that the first flu virus must have evolved sometime after the first mammals appeared.
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Hi singy123! Yes, “flu” or influenza, is caused by a virus. Like Aimee said, viruses cause disease by multiplying within the cells of their host. Humans are the usual hosts of the types of flu you are talking about, but flu viruses can jump between species. That’s why you might have heard of bird flu and swine flu – these flu viruses jumped from birds to humans or from pigs to humans.
Viruses, including flu viruses, evolve very quickly. This is because humans and other animals very quickly builds up an immunity to a particular flu virus after they are infected. If a virus did not change and evolve, it could only infect everyone in the world once before everyone is immune to it. The virus would then die out (technically it would be extinct!). So there is tremendous evolutionary pressure on flu viruses to change so that they can continue to reinfect everyone year after year.
Research that looks at the DNA of viruses suggests they have been around for several billion years. But this research is complicated. Because viruses change all the time and really quickly, it’s hard to tell from their DNA exactly how they first came about.
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Aimee and Bridget have this one covered. It’s interesting that the virus is doing what it knows best – reproducing itself. It turns out this is bad news for us, but the virus has found a very effective way of staying alive. The first flu virus was one that was able to reproduce and evade our natural defences – pretty clever stuff given how sophisticated our immune system is. Of course it wouldn’t have just sprung into existence. Flu viruses we see today probably had version millions of years ago that were different, and probably simpler. It’s taken a while for them to become as complex as they are, and they have no doubt evolved with us. They don’t want to kill us (they don’t “want” anything – they just reproduce), they just hitch a free ride on our complex metabolism. Sometimes they can make us very sick, and we have to use science to fight that.
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Jeepers. I don’t think anyone really knows. Aimee and Bridget have explained how viruses work really well.
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Don’t know. This is outside my area of knowledge.
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