I just woke up in the middle of the night...
Perhaps it is also an interesting question whether viruses existed before there were cells. Probably not, or they came to earth with another meteorite and waited until "life" in the form of cells and later bacteria arrived here, or at least its conditions if one assumes that the game between the two "forms of existence" has already been played together longer than on earth.
Viruses seem to me so different from "life". But in the sense of the theory of evolution and economy they are even more effective, even if they always remain only viruses.
And there are joint ventures. It is known that about 8 % of our DNA is ancient viruses, and in the meantime they take over important tasks of our vegetative and hormonal regulations. A rule of thumb says that the older viruses are, the more indispensable they are for us because they have come to terms with their host, or else it would have killed them. And the newer they are, the more threatening they are to the life of the host because their strategy is more aggressive while they can still kill. but they're multiplying more rapidly in this case.
