Author Topic: Viruses  (Read 12356 times)

Offline Numsgil

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« on: October 06, 2005, 10:23:41 PM »
How do real organisms defend against virus attacks?  Specifically once the virus is already inside its DNA.

Offline shvarz

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« Reply #1 on: October 06, 2005, 11:08:41 PM »
That's two questions in one. Most viruses don't integrate their DNA into host DNA.  If they do, there is almost no way to get rid of it.

There are three general mechanisms to fight viruses:
1. Something inside a cell stops viral replication.
2. Cells feel the virus and die (that stops viral spread).
3. Immune system recognizes and destroys virus and infected cells.

Anything else?
"Never underestimate the power of stupid things in big numbers" - Serious Sam

Offline Numsgil

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« Reply #2 on: October 06, 2005, 11:19:17 PM »
So I guess our little bots should really learn to make more slime.

Speaking of which, slime degredation might have to be reduced so it's better able to defend against viruses.  Or made more effective against viruses.

Offline Endy

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« Reply #3 on: October 07, 2005, 03:48:02 AM »
Quote
1. Something inside a cell stops viral replication.
2. Cells feel the virus and die (that stops viral spread).
3. Immune system recognizes and destroys virus and infected cells.

The last two would be possible to do currently. For an immune system simply have the other bots check on correct gene number and feed off infected ones. A continual delgene inc would likly take care of internal viruses, leaving an empty husk for family to feed from.

You could use code to keep viruses from spreading, messing with vshoot and mkvirus, although the virus could do the same to the host bot...

Man this is tricky, feels like trying to play a game against yourself :lol: For every attack there's a defense and every defense an attack. :)

Off Topic:

And just so I can tell a real biologist this idea:

What about slowing the immune systems response against HIV? If attacking is what allows T-cells to be infected wouldn't ignoring the virus help? Alright I know it's counter-intuitive, but the primate it came from does something similar to this and lives decently long even with high virus numbers.
« Last Edit: October 07, 2005, 04:43:52 AM by Endy »

Offline Zelos

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« Reply #4 on: October 07, 2005, 09:53:47 AM »
there are a way for a individual cell to acctualy prevent itself from producing viruses. think its called RNA interferens. a RNA is singel, thats how its bieng read to create a protein, either its hull or what ever it needs. but if the cell creates the other side of the virus RNA they will attatch to each other and become useless, a double RNA isnt possible to read. if a virus RNA is AUCCAU the cell would create a RNA with the code UAGGUA, and they would attacht to each other like
AUCCAU
UAGGUA
and then its not possible to use, but this doesnt work on all viruses, this is a ancient and old way of protection, it doesnt work on every virus. I dont know how many it works on

but how would this be achived in DB if we wanted it? well, what about if we create genes that instant of numbers says "anti"? or maybe you type the same number but "anti" infront of the command, so a virus would look like
Code: [Select]
6 .mkvirusthen if we have a gene that looks like:
Code: [Select]
-6 .antimkvirusor
Code: [Select]
anti .mkvirusor something like that then it would take out each other, its like 2+(-2) is 0, nothing would happen.
« Last Edit: October 07, 2005, 10:00:16 AM by zelos »
When I have the eclipse cannon under my control there is nothing that can stop me from ruling the world. And I wont stop there. I will never stop conquering worlds through the universe. All the worlds in the universe will belong to me. All the species in on them will be my slaves. THE ENIRE UNIVERSE WILL BELONG TO ME AND EVERYTHING IN IT :evil: AND THERE IS NOTHING ANYONE OF you CAN DO TO STOP ME. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Offline Botsareus

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« Reply #5 on: October 07, 2005, 10:19:06 AM »
I resently seen this being talked about on tv.

Basicaly it works like a computer antivirus program.

It checkes its own dna for a "signiture" of a virus. If it finds it , it deletes the whole gene.

Offline shvarz

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« Reply #6 on: October 07, 2005, 10:44:30 AM »
Endy:  Sorry to disappoint, but people are looking into that already.  It's not as easy as you made it sound.  

Zelo and Bots: iRNA falls into the first category of defenses that I listed.  And it's certainly not fool-proof, viruses can escape these defenses quite easily.  

Bots: It does not destroy the whole gene.  It destroyes that particular RNA message.  DNA is still there.
"Never underestimate the power of stupid things in big numbers" - Serious Sam

Offline Zelos

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« Reply #7 on: October 07, 2005, 10:48:09 AM »
it does shvarz, but for many on the forum it might be funnier to know mroe about it. But I never said it were fool proof, but as you say, I belive its quite easly to escape from it.
When I have the eclipse cannon under my control there is nothing that can stop me from ruling the world. And I wont stop there. I will never stop conquering worlds through the universe. All the worlds in the universe will belong to me. All the species in on them will be my slaves. THE ENIRE UNIVERSE WILL BELONG TO ME AND EVERYTHING IN IT :evil: AND THERE IS NOTHING ANYONE OF you CAN DO TO STOP ME. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Offline shvarz

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« Reply #8 on: October 07, 2005, 11:34:09 AM »
Ok then...  One thing should be clear is that it's not that double-stranded RNA is impossible to read.  The way iRNA works is that it recognizes 19 consecutive bases and if they match, then RNA message is sliced into small pieces (which is impossible to read).  In addition, cell recognizes double-stranded RNA and starts secreting molecules that tell surrounding cell that their neighbour may be infected.  This activates the immune system and puts in on guard.

As for your suggestion of .antimkvirus, I don't like it at all.  The reason is that then someone will suggest .antiantimkvirus command for viruses to use and then .antiantiantimkvirus for bots and .antiantiantimkvirus and so on... :)

We should not just introuce functionality, we need to come up with general rules.  Viruses are not something special, they are normal cellular processes gone wrong.  So what we need are normal DNA commands that can be used for normal bot function, but also for making virus.  Then they will be on equal grounds and different exploits and counter-exploits can be developed.
"Never underestimate the power of stupid things in big numbers" - Serious Sam

Offline Zelos

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« Reply #9 on: October 07, 2005, 12:11:08 PM »
a rule could be that anticommand can only by anticommands, not antianticommands

but the ribosomes can only read singel stranded RNA, so double is of course alot harder to do soemthing with
« Last Edit: October 07, 2005, 12:15:18 PM by zelos »
When I have the eclipse cannon under my control there is nothing that can stop me from ruling the world. And I wont stop there. I will never stop conquering worlds through the universe. All the worlds in the universe will belong to me. All the species in on them will be my slaves. THE ENIRE UNIVERSE WILL BELONG TO ME AND EVERYTHING IN IT :evil: AND THERE IS NOTHING ANYONE OF you CAN DO TO STOP ME. HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

Offline Numsgil

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« Reply #10 on: October 07, 2005, 01:01:12 PM »
Quote
a rule could be that anticommand can only by anticommands, not antianticommands
No, that's begging the question.

How about this:  Upon insertion, viral DNA takes a number of turns to "activate".  This would represent the time it takes a real virus to enter a cell and attach itself to the cell processes.

Thus a self-aware genome could easily find and exterminate the invading gene.

Offline shvarz

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« Reply #11 on: October 07, 2005, 01:02:14 PM »
RNA is almost never completely single-stranded, it always forms hairpins, so ribosomes are used to prying the two strands apart.
"Never underestimate the power of stupid things in big numbers" - Serious Sam

Offline shvarz

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« Reply #12 on: October 07, 2005, 01:17:55 PM »
Nums, these are really just details, you need to look at the bigger picture.  I am questioning the whole idea of a .mkvirus command.

Here is an example:  say we introduce a new command called .mkmultibot, which would take a single-cell bot and transform it into a pre-defined fully-functional multi-cellular organism.  Then we let evolution "figure out" how to use this command.  Would you consider that to be an accomplishment on part of evolution?  I won't.  Because what we want is to make simple rules and then using those rules create a multibot.

Same with viruses.  What we need is a system of commands useful in real-bot functions that can be hijacked to create a self-replicating message spreading from bot to bot.

I think we even have "viruses" now without the .mkvirus command (I am not sure, as I am not good with coding bots).  If a bot has a gene that fires an information-carrying particle (for example telling another bot where food is), then it is possible to hijack that system to pass around information just for the sake of passing information.  That, in essense, would be a virus.
"Never underestimate the power of stupid things in big numbers" - Serious Sam

Offline Numsgil

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« Reply #13 on: October 07, 2005, 01:23:30 PM »
Yeah, I thought a bit along those lines.  I guess the real question is:

1.  Can only DNA be passed in long lasting shots?

2.  Who/what gets to control what gets placed into such a shot?

Offline Greven

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« Reply #14 on: October 07, 2005, 02:06:41 PM »
To my knowledge a lot a vira actual use protein reconition (wrong spelled ;)) on a cell's surface to know which cell to infect, therefore a cell which mutates to have a different pattern of protein, then a particular virus cant reconize it and therefore can not infect it, we could add somekind of this incorporating the metabolism / env. grid.!
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011000011000001100010110010111101001110100110010111100101000001000001111001011101
001101001110011011010011100011110100111000011101100100000100110011010011100110110
010110000011100111101001110110111101011101100110000111101001101001110111111011101
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