Page 124 - The Microworld Miracle

indication of their presence for days, or even years. These viruses
wait for a moment when the immune system is weakened. When
the body is unable to resist it, the viruses will go into action and mi-
grate to the surface, where they initiate their activities inside skin
cells.

The really surprising thing is the way that a structure such as
the cell, which allows no foreign substance to enter it, can be used
by the virus in this manner. The virus does not just settle in to make
a home for itself, but also uses the cell's own mechanisms to repro-

duce. The seemingly conscious behavior exhibited here is still not
understood by scientists.
Under the effect of the virus that has entered it, the cell is
doomed, though it will expend the last of its energy until it dies and
breaks down. The virus, which has now reproduced and grown
much more numerous, spreads out to other cells.

This invasion takes place at breathtaking speed. Some viral ep-
idemics have eliminated whole communities in a matter of days.
One flu epidemic in 1918, for instance, killed 20 million people most
of who died just a few hours after their symptoms first appeared. 66

We now need to think a little about this conscious event caused
by a single virus. From where does the living thing we refer to as a
THE MICROWORLD MIRACLE alive and reproduce after remaining dormant, being as inanimate as
virus, consisting of just an outer casing and DNA, receive instruc-
tion as to how and when to enter the cell? How is it able to come

a stone? What allows it to survive the long years of dormancy?
Moreover, how does a virus possess the knowledge of how to occu-
py the whole body by entering a cell in a human being's body?

122 Where is this information maintained, and how does the virus