An Infinity of Viruses
See on Scoop.it – Virology and Bioinformatics from Virology.ca
When I talk about viruses, I have to struggle with big numbers.
If you get sick with the flu, for example, every infected cell in your airway produces about 10,000 new viruses. The total number of flu viruses in your body can rise to 100 trillion within a few days. That’s over 10,000 times more viruses than people on Earth.
If there can be so many viruses in a single person, how many viruses are there in total on our planet? I’ve hunted around for a number, and the one I’ve seen most often is 1031. As in, 10000000000000000000000000000000. As in over 10 million times more viruses than there are stars in the universe. As in, if you were to stack one virus on top of another, you’d create a tower that would stretch beyond the moon, beyond the sun, beyond Alpha Centauri, out past the edge of the Milky Way, past neighboring galaxies, to reach a height of 200 million light years.
