RE: Wash your hands or do not wash your hands when you eat
October 17, 2021 at 10:42 pm
(October 17, 2021 at 10:07 pm)Ferrocyanide Wrote: (October 17, 2021 at 7:34 pm)Oldandeasilyconfused Wrote: AH, thank you.
Viruses are very small. They are a small collection of molecules. Most of them are made of a single strand of RNA that bends at some point, it does 180 ° and comes back and forms some bonding with the same RNA strand. This helps to stabilize the RNA strand.
I think it also does a helix.
On top of that, there is a bunch of protein molecules that cover this RNA strand. This also helps to stabilize the RNA. I think the proteins are called capsids.
So, I guesstimate that the thickness of this type of virus is 50 to 100 atoms. This would mean that the thickness is 4 to 8 nm.
You can't see a single virus with an optical microscope bc of that.
They use an electron microscope. I think they mostly use a Scanning Electron Microscope.
There are some rare viruses that are DNA based instead of RNA.
Some viruses are bubble shaped, like this COVID-19. I would have to read about it sometime.
There is another thing called a viroids. These don’t have the protein cover.
Some viruses can infect a bacteria. Some can infect plants. I think they are mostly specific. A virus might work in a certain plant but not others.
Bacteria are gigantic compared to a virus and can be seen under an optical microscope.
Viruses are technically not alive (the biological definition of alive) but they categories them in biology since they play a big role there.
WARNING: There might be some errors. I'm not a biology pro.
Perhaps you're not a biology pro, but you managed to confuse me.
