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"A short 3.6 minute visually stunning introductory trailer choreographed to powerful music that introduces the viewer/student to the characteristics that all life on Earth shares. I made this for use by teachers of Biology and the Life Sciences as a motivational introduction to the wonders of life and the amazing characteristics that we all possess. As a High School Biology teacher myself, I have found these videos a great way to capture student interest immediately."

3:40 This visually stunning introductory trailer choreographed to powerful music introduces the viewer to the characteristics that all life on Earth shares. It is designed for use by teachers of Biology and the Life Sciences as a motivational introduction to the wonders of life and the amazing characteristics that we all possess. 

The origin of viruses remains mysterious because of their diverse and patchy molecular and functional makeup. Although numerous hypotheses have attempted to explain viral origins, none is backed by substantive data. We take full advantage of the wealth of available protein structural and functional data to explore the evolution of the proteomic makeup of thousands of cells and viruses. Despite the extremely reduced nature of viral proteomes, we established an ancient origin of the "viral supergroup" and the existence of widespread episodes of horizontal transfer of genetic information. Viruses harboring different replicon types and infecting distantly related hosts shared many metabolic and informational protein structural domains of ancient origin that were also widespread in cellular proteomes. Phylogenomic analysis uncovered a universal tree of life and revealed that modern viruses reduced from multiple ancient cells that harbored segmented RNA genomes and coexisted with the ancestors of modern cells. The model for the origin and evolution of viruses and cells is backed by strong genomic and structural evidence and can be reconciled with existing models of viral evolution if one considers viruses to have originated from ancient cells and not from modern counterparts.

The Tree of Life Web Project (ToL) is a collaborative effort of biologists and nature enthusiasts from around the world. On more than 10,000 World Wide Web pages, the project provides information about biodiversity, the characteristics of different groups of organisms, and their evolutionary history (phylogeny).

8' video on origins of life Paul Andersen describes how life could have formed on our planet through natural processes. The progression from monomers, to polymers, to protocells and finally to cells is described. The Miller-Urey experiment is described in detail as well as characteristics of the latest universal ancestor.

What does it mean to be 'alive'? At a basic level, viruses are proteins and genetic material that survive and replicate within their environment, inside another life form. In the absence of their host, viruses are unable to replicate and many are unable to survive for long in the extracellular environment. Therefore, if they cannot survive independently, can they be defined as being 'alive'?

no idea where to draw the line between living and dead things. Which leads to mind-blowing implications. What is life after all? And is death really a thing? Lets look into it together

Scientists are not sure whether viruses are living or non-living. In general, scientists use a list of criteria to determine if something is alive. Let's look at some traits of living things and see if viruses also have those traits.

A paper published today in Science Advances just might change that. By creating a reliable method of studying viruses' long evolutionary history-hitherto nearly impossible-researchers have found new evidence that strongly suggests viruses are indeed living entities.

Viruses have a huge impact on our lives, and we're making great strides into understanding how to protect ourselves from the flu and HIV. But one thing that scientists have struggled to agree on is whether or not viruses are alive.