Virus Overview
The virus was first thought about in 1883 when A. Mayer was seeking to find the cause of the tobacco mosaic disease. Though he was unable to see them with the microscopy of his day, he postulated that a small agent caused the disease. D. Ivanowsky, later tried tests as well and also concluded that it was a disease caused by something smaller than they could see. The virus was first found and discovered in 1935 by Wendell Stanly. He was able to crystallize the virus, now known as the tobacco mosaic virus.
The smallest viruses are only 20 nm in diameter, smaller even than a ribosome in a cell. Though not a living thing, viruses are infections particles consisting of only the viral genes in closed in a shell of protein. Their genomes consist of double-stranded DNA, double stranded RNA, single-stranded DNA, or single stranded RNA. The name of a virus, DNA or RNA, is based on the type of nucleic acid that composed its genome. The smaller viruses have only a few genes......
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