SPIRITUALITY SCIENCE – EBOLA VIRUS – BIOTIC INTERACTIONS:
The most recent concerns about the outbreak of Ebola Virus infection in West Africa and its spread to the United States give us an opportunity to define the term Spirituality and Spiritual Biotic Interactions.
The problem of the Ebola Virus infection outbreak in West Africa helps us to investigate the molecular basis for human existence. In my view, Spirituality Science is fundamentally concerned with the nature of Interactions between biomolecules that define human existence.
I define the word “Spiritual” as a relationship, a partnership, a connection, a bonding, or an association between living entities based upon characteristics such as compassion, sympathy, cooperation, mutual assistance, tolerance, voluntary subservience, and functional subordination to provide some benefit to the members of a biotic community participating in Biotic Interactions in a given environment. Viruses survive as parasites for they need a host cell to supply the chemical energy and matter to perform its basic living function called replication.
Ebola Hemorrhagic Virus is discovered in 1976. The Virus attacks the Endothelial Cells which form the lining of the blood vessels, the White Blood Cells called Phagocytes, Liver Cells or Hepatocytes and the cells of Kidney and the structural and functional damage caused can lead to unconsciousness apart from manifesting various symptoms due to bleeding from the affected organs and tissues.
Humans have about 20,000 protein-encoding genes, whereas the Ebola Virus has 7 genes. But, the Virus uses a protein called VP40, a Transformer Protein that can assume three distinct shapes, each with a separate function that is critical to the Virus’s survival. Each of VP40’s structural arrangement is linked to a different function in the Virus life-cycle; it assumes a butterfly shape but, near the nucleus of the host cell, VP40 transforms into a ring that regulates how the Viral genetic information is copied. At the Cell Membrane of the host cell, VP40 assembles into a linear structure which plays a role in the creation of new Viruses. While the human host cells provides a variety of benefits to the Virus, the interactions between the Virus and the cells of the human organism contribute no benefit to the man. If we study the interactions that occur between the trillions of individual living cells that comprise the human organism, we witness mutually beneficial partnership between the cells of the human organism and the Whole Organism that represents the Human Individual. The interactions between Viral protein molecules and the biomolecules of human life are detrimental to human well-being for those interactions do not establish peace, harmony, and tranquility in the human living condition. At the same time, it may be realized that man is a natural host to trillions of microbes that reside in man’s gastrointestinal tract. It is estimated that these gut microbial flora have around 100 times as many genes in aggregate as there are in the human genome that comprises of 20,000 genes. The spiritual nature of the biotic interactions between the cells of the human organism and the microbes that naturally reside in the human stomach, and intestines shows that there is a spiritual basis for the molecules of life that define the human organism and support his existence.
Related Articles:
Science and Spiritualism – Biotic Interactions and Consciousness
Spiritualism – The Molecular Basis of Spirituality
