re: Image of a virus taken by an electron microscope

That is probably (looks like) a T4 macrophage.

The geometric looking top is an elongated Icosahedron (30 sided structure) and it contains the viral genetic material.

If I am right (about it being a T4), that one replicates on E.coli bacteria - specific to that organism. In liquid, it floats around until the legs touch the cell wall of the E.coli bacterium. When the legs tough,they attach and the virus squats down until the base (where the legs attach to the column, which is made out of protein molecules, constructed in a spiral molecular configuration) touches the cell wall.

There are small enzyme containing spears there (sticking out of the base) that eat a hole in the E.coli cell wall. When the hole opens up, the spiral protein column contracts (like a spring and injects the DNA fro the head, down the hollow column and into the bacterium.

The DNA interferes with the bacterium's cellular functions and takes over the metabolic genetic replication process allowing the viral DNA to replicate. Pretty quickly, several hundred T4 phages are created within the E.coil and when that happens, the cell sort of explodes, releasing the viruses into the medium where they float around until the contact another E.coli and it starts over again.

You can seed a flask of E.coli in liquid medium with a few T4 phages and within a day or so, they will wipe out every one of billions and billions of bacterial cells in the Flask. There is no hope for them, once the first phage hits the first E.coli cell.

Thanks for letting me brain dump old virology lecture material on you guys.

I know you know this. Viruses are not living creatures, They do not take in food, they do not metabolize and they do not grow. All of these need to happen if we call something alive. They are only genetic replication (chemical)machines.