Organisms and Virus Attacks
Scroll down the page of "The Big Picture Book of Viruses" to the heading "Categories of hosts found in virus taxa". Here you will be able to find information about which organisms are attacked by viruses, and how many types of viruses are involved. For some groups of organisms, only a few viruses are listed as attackers. Why do you think that is? Do you think the list is absolutely complete (all the viruses that exist have been discovered and are listed)? Do you think algae receive less scientific study than humans? How would you go about recognizing a sick, diseased alga? What data would you need to determine that the sick alga was suffering from a virus attack rather than an attack by bacteria? Suffering from a deficiency of essential elements? Or just has a genetic mutation?
Visit the The Big Picture Book of Viruses web site
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Science Today: Morality and Ethics
If society wanted to, it could easily develop techniques for cloning humans. It is already possible to alter many genes in plants, animals and humans to cure diseases. What moral/ethical issues are involved with these sorts of alterations? Some people say that scientists merely discover knowledge, and if that knowledge is used either to help or to harm people, that is not the responsibility of the scientist, but of the politicians or industrialists who use the knowledge. Do you agree or disagree? Do you believe that scientists have no moral ties to their research? These are not new questions. Scientists have made many discoveries that can be of both great benefit and great disaster to humans and the earth as we know it. Some of these discoveries are explosives that are used to build roads and to blow up cities, drugs that are used as medicines and agents of chemical warfare, nuclear technologies for generating electricity and for threatening the world with disaster. For further information, go to the web site "On Being a Scientist" prepared by the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering and the Institute of Medicine. Scroll down the page until you come to the table of contents.
Visit the On Being a Scientist web site
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