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  • hidden in the microverse all around you there's  a merciless war being fought by the true rulers  

  • of this planet microorganisms amoeba protists  bacteria archaea and fungi compete for resources  

  • and space and then there are the strange horrors  that are viruses hunting everyone else not even  

  • alive they are the tiniest most abundant and  deadliest beings on earth killing trillions every  

  • day not interested in resources only in living  things to take over also we thought turns out  

  • there are giant viruses that blur the line between  life and death and other viruses hunting them

  • considerably smaller than your cells or even  bacteria viruses are nothing but a hull a tiny  

  • bit of genetic material and a few proteins no  metabolism no way to propel themselves no will  

  • or ambition they float around aimlessly and hope  to stumble upon a victim to infect and take over  

  • viruses are so simple that we're not sure  if they should count as living things or not  

  • some scientists argue viruses are alive others  think that the cells they infect are the actual  

  • living viruses hybrid organisms called viral  cells and the viral particles are more like seeds  

  • or spores and many others think viruses are just  dead material the origin of viruses is a mystery  

  • because how can something that needs victims  to make more of itself emerge in the first  

  • place there are many ideas viruses may have been  essential steps in the emergence of life or maybe  

  • they started out as escaped dna from cells that  became really good at making copies of themselves  

  • maybe they are the descendants of truly lazy  parasites that let others do all the work for  

  • them the current thinking is that viruses probably  emerged multiple times from different origins  

  • but we simply don't know for sure yet whatever the  truth is viruses are the most successful beings on  

  • this planet there's an estimated 10 000 billion  billion billion viruses on earth if we put them  

  • all next to each other they would stretch for 100  million light years 500 milky way galaxies wide  

  • very recently viruses became even weirder  when scientists found a completely new type  

  • giant viruses nicknamed gyrus not only did it  break all sorts of records but questioned many  

  • assumptions we had about their nature gyruses  even come with their own parasites virophages  

  • viruses that hunt other viruses which seemingly  makes no sense at all and since we identified the  

  • first one in 2003 it seems like these giants  are everywhere we look in the oceans in water  

  • towers in the guts of pigs and the mouths of  humans and they're even weirder than we thought  

  • gyruses look funny like hairy geometric  forms or mini pickles much larger than  

  • all viruses we knew before which explains how  they could hide in plain sight for centuries  

  • scientists saw them under their microscopes  and just thought they had to be bacteria  

  • it's like suddenly discovering there  are elephant-sized ducks everywhere  

  • most gyruses we've found so far hunt amoebi and  other single-celled beings when they find a victim  

  • they connect with it and use its natural processes  to enter the cell like all viruses their goal is  

  • to misappropriate the victim's infrastructure and  procreate imagine a mouse crawling into your mouth  

  • and using your guts and bones and  fat tissue to build a mouse factory  

  • the gyrus unloads its attack proteins and genetic  material and rearranges the cell from the inside  

  • its structural elements protein production  machinery and large amounts of mitochondria  

  • for energy are changed to become an actual  factory called viroplasm some gyruses even  

  • construct a membrane to shield them from the  cell's antiviral defenses once finished the  

  • viroplasm begins to assemble new gyruses using  the victim up from the inside until it's filled up  

  • finally the invader usually orders the cell to  self-destruct and releases new gyruses to look  

  • for new prey but what makes gyruses special  is not their modus operandi or their size even  

  • it's that they are much more complex than thought  possible for a virus your cells have around 20  

  • 000 genes a typical bacterium has a few thousand  genes the coronavirus has around 15 hiv or the flu  

  • around 10. the number of genes alone is certainly  not everything the tomato for example has 35  

  • 000 genes but generally we think of life ascomplex system so below a certain complexity level  

  • something may be closer to dead material  rather than a living organism but gyruses  

  • can have hundreds or even thousands of genes  blurring the line between living and dead things  

  • and it's not just the numbers that are special  but also what these genes do we used to think of  

  • viral genes as the simplest of instructions just  enough to overcome the defense of their victims  

  • and make new viruses but many gyrus genes  are completely unique basically mystery genes  

  • even more confusing a huge selection of their  genes that are actually hallmarks of living  

  • things genes that regulate nutrient intake energy  production light harvesting replication or are  

  • just necessary to keep cells alive some recent  studies have even suggested that some gyruses  

  • with very complex genomes may be able to maintain  a basic level of metabolism on their own which if  

  • true will shake up what we thought of viruses  even more we still don't know anything for sure  

  • but one idea about gyrus genes is that they might  fundamentally alter the physiology and evolution  

  • of their victims by integrating their own genomes  and merging with them into chimeric organisms  

  • or the other way around take some host genes with  them and be changed themselves for billions of  

  • years gyruses may have been existing alongside  and infecting cells exerting an unseen influence  

  • on the development of life not just as a parasite  but jerking evolution in different directions by  

  • mixing genes around in all directions which brings  us to another unique thing about them virophages  

  • the viruses hunting gyruses the concept itself is  a bit mind-boggling how can a thing that might be  

  • dead hunt another thing that might be dead too  let's look at one of them the viruphage sputnik  

  • is hunting a gyrus called mama virus that  itself is hunting amoebi sputnik is a tiny  

  • minimalistic virus that doesn't even have  the genes and tools to replicate itself  

  • what it does have is the ability to hijack the  viroplasm factories of mama viruses so virophages  

  • need their victim the gyrus to infect their victim  an amoeba first and then they can parasitize it  

  • a memovirus viroplasm infected by sputnik can only  produce very few new gyruses and among these many  

  • are deformed and broken unable to infect further  cells instead it makes loads of new sputnik  

  • viruphages other virophages are even more subtle  when they infect a viroplasm they just integrate  

  • their genetic code into the newly produced gyruses  like sleeper agents the next time one of these  

  • infiltrated gyruses successfully infects a cell  it produces mostly viruphages instead of gyruses  

  • gyruses are not completely defenseless  though a few years ago the world was in  

  • awe when scientists discovered crispr a bacterial  defense system against viruses it turns out some  

  • gyruses have a system that might be similarsort of gyrus immune system against virophages  

  • in turn virophages can also be used as an  antigyrus defense mechanism by living cells  

  • some protests have been found that integrated the  genetic code of virophages into their genome and  

  • kept it when the protists were infected by gyruses  they used the code to create virophages themselves  

  • to take over the gyrus factories in the end  the protists would still be killed by the gyrus  

  • infection but instead of releasing gyruses to kill  its buddies it released virophages to hunt them  

  • the amazing thing about everything we've told you  in this video is that we're still very much at the  

  • beginning it's not even been 20 years since the  discovery of gyruses and virophages there is so  

  • much going on in the microverse life is not an  isolated event but a ping pong game of trillions  

  • of organisms and viruses so when you feel down and  like there's not that much new to discover think  

  • of gyruses and all the other elephant-sized ducks  all around us invisible until we look more closely  

  • but how do you learn to look  at the world like a scientist  

  • the best way is by trying things out for yourself  our friends from brilliant are the perfect coaches  

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  • the focus is on you having fun learning something  will happen almost without you noticing it  

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  • go to brilliant.org nutshell and sign up for free  and there's an extra perk for kurzgesagt viewers  

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  • you

hidden in the microverse all around you there's  a merciless war being fought by the true rulers  

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