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From: martin@cs.ualberta.ca (Tim Martin; FSO; Soil Sciences)
Newsgroups: comp.virus
Subject: Re: Malicious Program Definitions
Message-ID: <0006.9105011240.AA25914@ubu.cert.sei.cmu.edu>
Date: 29 Apr 91 23:07:15 GMT
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walker@AEDC-VAX.AF.MIL (William Walker C60223 x4570) writes:

>If the term "bacterium" (plural "bacteria") is used for host-based
>dependent replicators, and "virus" ("virii") is used for host-based
>independent replicators ( for lack of better terms to separate the two

The biologists amongst us would be much happier if you reversed these
two names, since a virus is a much more dependent organism than is a
bacterium.  A virus uses the host biochemical mechanisms to replicate,
while a bacterium has its own.  So the dependent replicators should be
called virii and the independent ones bacteria, assuming we want to be
consistent with the analogy.

Tim Martin
Soil Science
University of Alberta