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Chimeras and ConsciousnessEvolution of the Sensory Self$
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Chimeras and Consciousness: Evolution of the Sensory Self

Lynn Margulis, Celeste A. Asikainen, and Wolfgang E. Krumbein

Print publication date: 2011

Print ISBN-13: 9780262015394

Published to MIT Press Scholarship Online: August 2013

DOI: 10.7551/mitpress/9780262015394.001.0001

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PRINTED FROM MIT PRESS SCHOLARSHIP ONLINE (www.mitpress.universitypressscholarship.com). (c) Copyright The MIT Press, 2021. All Rights Reserved. An individual user may print out a PDF of a single chapter of a monograph in MITSO for personal use.date: 25 July 2021

Valuable Viruses

Valuable Viruses

Chapter:
(p.16) (p.17) 1 Valuable Viruses
Source:
Chimeras and Consciousness
Author(s):

Frank P. Ryan

Publisher:
The MIT Press
DOI:10.7551/mitpress/9780262015394.003.0002

This chapter introduces the viruses—biological entities so small they are not even selves. It analyzes how viruses, although not autopoietic entities nor alive, promote healthy life by engaging in “cyclical symbioses.” It evaluates cyclical symbioses: how viruses move genes into and then out of living cells and whole organisms. This chapter shows that the recent insight into viruses and their potential in symbiosis as part of “self” offers exciting new possibilities for research. It suggests that viruses are still fundamental to genetic fusions across disparate taxa lineages and in the origin of sensation in cells and organisms.

Keywords:   viruses, cyclical symbioses, genes, living cells, organisms, genetic fusions, taxa lineages

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