Viruses can’t replicate and spread on their own. They need a host, and they need to hijack the cells of the host to replicate. When they replicate in a host, they face the challenge of duplicating their genetic material. For many viruses, this isn’t an exact process and their offspring often contain errors — meaning they’re not exact copies of the original virus.
These errors are referred to as mutations, and viruses with these mutations are called variants. Often, these mutations don’t affect the biological properties of the virus. That is, they don’t have any effect on how the virus replicates or causes disease.
UK, South African, Brazilian: a virologist explains each COVID variant and what they mean for the pandemic (theconversation.com)
I’m pretty sure the dinosaurs died out when they stopped gathering food and started having meetings to discuss gathering food
A bookshop is one of the only pieces of evidence we have that people are still thinking
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