Persistence pays: how viruses promote host group survival.

Recently, we have realized that viruses numerically dominate all life. Although viruses are known to affect host survival in populations, this has not been previously evaluated in the context of host group selection. Group selection per se is not a currently accepted idea and its apparent occurrence is explained by statistical gene frequency models of kin selection. Viruses were not considered in such models. Prevalent views associate viruses and disease. Yet many viruses establish species-specific persistent, inapparent infections that are stable on an evolutionary time scale. Such persistent infections can have large effects on relative reproductive fitness of competing host populations. In this essay, I present arguments on how persistent infections can promote population survival. Mouse hepatitis virus is used as well studied examplar to re-evaluate the theoretical basis of the mouse haystack model of M Smith. This virus-centric re-examination concludes that viruses can indeed affect and promote relative group selection

Force for ancient and recent life: viral and stem-loop RNA consortia promote life.

Lytic viruses were thought to kill the most numerous host (i.e., kill the winner). But persisting viruses/defectives can also protect against viruses, especially in a ubiquitous virosphere. In 1991, Yarmolinsky et al. discovered the addiction modules of P1 phage, in which opposing toxic and protective functions stabilize persistence. Subsequently, I proposed that lytic and persisting cryptic virus also provide addiction modules that promote group identity. In eukaryotes (and the RNA world), a distinct RNA virus-host relationship exists. Retrovirurses/retroposons are major contributors to eukaryotic genomes. Eukaryotic complexity appears to be mostly mediated by regulatory complexity involving noncoding retroposon-derived RNA. RNA viruses evolve via quasispecies, which contain cooperating, minority, and even opposing RNA types. Quasispecies can also demonstrate group preclusion (e.g., hepatitis C). Stem-loop RNA domains are found in long terminal repeats (and viral RNA) and mediate viral regulation/identity. Thus, stem-loop RNAs may be ancestral regulators. I consider the RNA (ribozyme) world scenario from the perspective of addiction modules and cooperating quasispecies (i.e., subfunctional agents that establish group identity). Such an RNA collective resembles a "gang" but requires the simultaneous emergence of endonuclease, ligase, cooperative catalysis, group identity, and history markers (RNA). I call such a collective a gangen (pathway to gang) needed for life to emerge

Comments on Unified dark energy and dark matter from a scalar field different from quintessence

In a recent paper by C. Gao, M. Kunz, A. Liddle and D. Parkinson [arXiv:0912.0949], the unification of dark matter and dark energy was explored within a theory containing a scalar field of non-Lagrangian type. This scalar field, different from the classic quintessence, can be obtained from the scalar field representation of an interacting two-fluid mixture described in the paper by L.P. Chimento and M. Forte [arXiv:0706.4142

Big brake singularity is accommodated as an exotic quintessence field

We describe a big brake singularity in terms of a modified Chaplygin gas equation of state p=(\ga_{m}-1)\rho+\al\ga_{m}\rho^{-n}, accommodate this late-time event as an exotic quintessence model obtained from an energy-momentum tensor, and focus on the cosmological behavior of the exotic field, its kinetic energy and the potential energy. At the background level, the exotic field does not blow up whereas its kinetic energy and potential both grow without limit near the future singularity. We evaluate the classical stability of this background solution by examining the scalar perturbations of the metric along with the inclusion of entropy perturbation in the perturbed pressure. Within the Newtonian gauge, the gravitational field approaches a constant near the singularity plus additional regular terms. When the perturbed exotic field is associated with \al>0 the perturbed pressure and contrast density both diverge, whereas the perturbed exotic field and the divergence of the exotic field's velocity go to zero exponentially. When the perturbed exotic field is associated with \al<0 the contrast density always blows up, but the perturbed pressure can remain bounded. In addition, the perturbed exotic field and the divergence of the exotic field's velocity vanish near the big brake singularity. We also briefly look at the behavior of the intrinsic entropy perturbation near the singular event.Comment: 11 pages, no figures. Accepted for its publication in PR