What if viruses are the peak lifeform on Earth?

I was thinking of this concept after reading that viruses may play a part in obesity. What if viruses are actually controlling all of the life on this planet? I mean check out the things... They sure look like aliens, or something completely foreign to this world.

Image Source.

I'm reminded that viruses are not considered "alive" since they cannot exist for any length of time outside a host. They're pretty much a capsule around genetic material that replicates. Whilst we do have some antiviral pharmaceuticals now, they're never 100% effective. These drugs are more about inhibiting transmission of the virus rather than killing it per se.

There have been plenty of notorious viruses throughout the ages - rabies, polio, influenza, but probably the most nefarious is HIV or Human Immunodeficiency Virus. The origin of HIV has been thoroughly researched since the disease came to prominence in the 1980s. Scientists believe that the virus crossed species from chimps to humans in the 1920s in the Congo.

I remember conspiracy theories in the 1990s that linked HIV with polio vaccination. Polio vaccines were grown in monkey kidney cell lines so there is some possibility that this was a potential transfer point. Scientists generally believe that the transfer happened prior to polio vaccines, and have tested old samples of vaccine and found no contamination with HIV, but key scientific journals like Nature have been reluctant to add any fuel to the fire by deciding not to publish articles on the subject.

In Australia a highly virulent virus, Hendra crossed species from the flying fox to horses. The virus then spread from horses to humans, and subsequently killed 4 of the 7 people that were infected.

I visited scientists at the Australian Animal Health Laboratory who successfully produced a vaccine for prevention of infection by Hendra. They all wear the spacesuits down there dealing with this virus, and the facility itself is super secure.

Image Source

In recent times there have been conspiracy theories around the generation and spread of Zika virus. They suggest that this virus may have been produced in a genetically modified mosquito. For what it's worth this seems pretty illogical to me, since Zika seems relatively harmless in the scheme of things (apart from causing malformations in foetuses). But I do love a good conspiracy theory.

The National Geographic even wrote a story on the possibility that viruses began life on Earth as we know it. Going back to the image of the virus above, it pretty much looks like a syringe of DNA to me.... so who knows?

The National Geographic article writes:

virus-like elements spurred several of the most important stages in the emergence of life: the evolution of DNA, the formation of the first cells, and life's split into three domains—Archaea, bacteria, and eukaryotes. Archaea and bacteria are all unicellular organisms, and eukaryotes emerged after an ancient fusion event between an archaeon and a bacterium.

Viruses are brilliant - for capsules of genetic material. They have been shown to be able to hijack mitochondria (the powerhouse of the cell) to make it produce energy for the viruses' requirements.

Sounds like they're smart to me, for something that's not officially alive. Anyway, it's an interesting concept to ponder. Perhaps we'll find the answers one day.

I guess we'll need to keep studying them.