Viruses in all Dimensions
Abstract
Microorganisms, viruses, and computer programs encode all the information necessary to reproduce and spread themselves. Yet these mechanisms are amazingly similar in the animate world, in the world of viruses, and even in the world of technical systems. The book shows how great the parallels are between these various animate and inanimate replicating systems and what they are based on. The excursion also leads into the fascinating world of genetics, to the question of what defines life and into the programming of software that multiplies itself independently. Finally, the question is derived whether and to what extent such self-replicating technical systems can become as dangerous as infectious viruses in triggering pandemics, such as the Corona pandemic in 2020. Show more
Publication status
publishedPages / Article No.
Publisher
SpringerEdition / version
1st EditionSubject
Viruses; Computer viruses; Information coding; Analogy of viruses and computer viruses; self-replicating systems; Information; COVID 19 Virus; Genetics; Epigenetics; origin of life; DNA; RNAMore
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ETH Bibliography
yes
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