Great read. I'd recently been discussing with friends the point raised on slide #29 - "Are viruses evolve toward benignity (not eradicate their hosts)?"
General thinking - if a virus was actually beneficial to the host, surely the host would seek it out? I recall reading an article many years ago that mentioned that uncooked red-meat infected most of the population with a virus that subtly slowed reaction times. Flip that around and think about the adoption if there was a virus that improved reaction times.
I'm certainly no expert in the area - just fun to think about if things evolved that way.
This type of thinking can be extended everywhere too. What if the ASK toolbar actually made Chrome faster? Would you install it? ;-)
Enjoyable presentation & certainly made me want to find a book that would educate me on some of the terms used since I'm no expert. Appreciated that some parts where in simple terms.
General thinking - if a virus was actually beneficial to the host, surely the host would seek it out? I recall reading an article many years ago that mentioned that uncooked red-meat infected most of the population with a virus that subtly slowed reaction times. Flip that around and think about the adoption if there was a virus that improved reaction times.
I'm certainly no expert in the area - just fun to think about if things evolved that way.
This type of thinking can be extended everywhere too. What if the ASK toolbar actually made Chrome faster? Would you install it? ;-)
Enjoyable presentation & certainly made me want to find a book that would educate me on some of the terms used since I'm no expert. Appreciated that some parts where in simple terms.