Dr Alex Evilevitch and his colleagues provide the first experimental evidence of a high internal pressure of tens of atmospheres within Herpes simplex virus 1, resulting from the confined genome. NPC – nuclear pore complex (Bauer DW et al)
The study provides the first experimental evidence of high internal pressure within a virus that infects humans – a phenomenon previously only attributed to viruses that infect bacteria.
“Despite billions of years of evolution separating eukaryotic viruses and bacteriophages, the existence of an internal pressure capable of powering the ejection of DNA into a host cell has been conserved. This suggests that it is a key mechanism for viral infection across organisms and presents us with a new drug target for antiviral therapies,” said Dr Alex Evilevitch of Carnegie Mellon University, senior author of the study published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
Many viruses, whether they infect bacteria, plants or animals, are adept at packing long stretches of DNA or RNA within their nanometer-sized protein shells.
Herpes simplex virus 1 (HSV-1) contains double-stranded DNA that is 400 times longer than the radius of the viral shell it fills.
The DNA gets packaged so tightly that it bends upon itself, resulting in repulsive forces that exert tremendous energy and pressure on the virus’s outer shell. When HSV-1 infects a cell, it enters through the outer cell membrane and makes its way to the cell nucleus, where it docks in a small hole found in the nuclear membrane. That act is like a key opening a lock that allows the HSV-1 to eject its DNA into the cell nucleus.
For years, scientists hypothesized that a high internal pressure inside eukaryotic viruses like HSV-1 enabled the virus to shoot its DNA into the host cell’s nucleus. But it was impossible to measure HSV-1′s internal pressure without knowing how to release the viral DNA in a controlled, experimental setting.
But there seems to be n serious new threat lurking that has made Google to announce the threat publicly warning that people may lose internet connection in July 2012.
Or is it a hoax like Y2 K?
There is yet another virus threat Flame.
” Google plans to warn more than half a million users of a computer infection that may knock their computers off the Internet this summer.
Unknown to most of them, their problem began when international hackers ran an online advertising scam to take control of infected computers around the world. In a highly unusual response, the FBI set up a safety net months ago using government computers to prevent Internet disruptions for those infected users. But that system will be shut down July 9 — killing connections for those people.
The FBI has run an impressive campaign for months, encouraging people to visit a website that will inform them whether they’re infected and explain how to fix the problem. After July 9, infected users won’t be able to connect to the Internet.
On Tuesday, May 22, Google announced it would throw its weight into the awareness campaign, rolling out alerts to users via a special message that will appear at the top of the Google search results page for users with affected computers, CNET reported.
“We believe directly messaging affected users on a trusted site and in their preferred language will produce the best possible results,” wrote Google security engineer Damian Menscher in a post on the company’s security blog.
“If more devices are cleaned and steps are taken to better secure the machines against further abuse, the notification effort will be well worth it,” he wrote.
The challenge, and the reason for the awareness campaigns: Most victims don’t even know their computers have been infected, although the malicious software probably has slowed their web surfing and disabled their antivirus software, making their machines more vulnerable to other problems.
Last November, when the FBI and other authorities were preparing to take down a hacker ring that had been running an Internet ad scam on a massive network of infected computers, the agency realized this may become an issue.
“We started to realize that we might have a little bit of a problem on our hands because … if we just pulled the plug on their criminal infrastructure and threw everybody in jail, the victims of this were going to be without Internet service,” said Tom Grasso, an FBI supervisory special agent. “The average user would open up Internet Explorer and get `page not found’ and think the Internet is broken.” http://www.foxnews.com/scitech/2012/05/25/google-warns-hundreds-thousands-may-lose-internet-in-july/#ixzz1wGeC156E
“Long Arm of Scofflaw
An online ad scam is having some unintended ramifications: The fix may prevent as many as 360,000 from getting online. Several sites will show if you’re infected: DNS Changer Working Group: can discern whether you’re infected and explain how to fix the problem.
DNSChanger Eye Chart: if the site goes red, you’re in harm’s way. Green means clean.
The FBI website: type in the IP address of your DNS server to find out if it is infected. Read more on how to stay safe
“Middle Eastern states were targeted and Iran ordered an emergency review of official computer installations after the discovery of a new virus, known as Flame.
Experts said the massive malicious software was 20 times more powerful than other known cyber warfare programmes including the Stuxnet virus and could only have been created by a state.
It is the third cyber attack weapon targeting systems in the Middle East to be exposed in recent years.
Iran has alleged that the West and Israel are orchestrating a secret war of sabotage using yber warfare and targeted assassinations of its scientists as part of the dispute over its nuclear programme.
Stuxnet attacked Iran’s nuclear programme in 2010, while a related programme, Duqu, named after the Star Wars villain, stole data.
Smartphones are a craze that’s sweeping the world, and we are yet to see any indication this is going to change in the foreseeable future. This can only be a good thing – it gives you the chance to have the computer you dreamt of a few years ago in your pocket and do all the fancy stuff you want to do while on the go. Mind, this is only the beginning and these smart devices are getting better all the time, so more features are on the way – and more features translate into more opportunities, while more opportunities ensure that we are going to store additional and potentially sensitive information on our smartphones. And here comes the issue with smartphone security – a problem that is grossly underestimated by most users, which is really surprising given the fact that a few viruses have already managed to breach the security of various mobile OSs.
The outbreak might not be contained to the smartphone either.
Most of the current generation of smartphones have mini usb connectors. The connector not only allow the devices to be charged, but also allows them to be plugged into a desktop computer for data syncing. This could allow a virus to be transferred to your desktop or laptop from your smartphone. (I also plug my smartphone into my car’s usb connector to charge. Could a virus be uploaded into it?)
So, what should smartphone owners do? While many companies have developed anti-virus software for smartphones, I suggest simply using the same safe computing practices one uses with their desktop:
Be wary of email attachments, even if they come from friends
Useful software. Viruses spread fastly throughpendriveswhen we use in schools, colleges and office. In order to prevent your USB Drive from getting infected, you will need to create some files on your pen drive likeAutorun.inf file(Check this if you face Autorun.inf problem) and some other files which will later prevent the virus infection as these files being already created and cannot be deleted, so that virus or trojan cannot copy files and folders or create them on your USB Drive when you connect your drive to virus infected PC.
There somefreeware to vaccinate your USB drives from virus infection. I have already discussed in detail about Panda USB Vaccine 1.0.1.4 .Today I came across a similar tool called USB Defender. Its really cool !!!
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