Let's eavesdrop on this conversation between Polish Professor Velcro
Adhesioninski and one of his grad students in the virology lab.

PP Velcro: Yo Edju, come over here and peer . . . into this new depth
resolution electron .microscope. What a wonderful resolution I'm
getting.

Edju: Ya professor, let me sit down there at the control table so I can
adjust the electronic bias on the focusing and depth grids. Thanks.

PP Velcro: So Edju . . . can you describe what you are seeing?

Edju: I see a beautiful picture of what looks like a golf ball, except
its got things stuck in its surface and all over and around.it.

PP Velcro: Yes, I saw them too. Would you describe them as appearing to
be golf tees, but with their points stuck in the surface of the ball
all over and around.

Edju: Yep. There are so many of them that you can hardly make out the
surface of the golf ball. These golf tees stick outward all at the
same angle and all more or less parallel to each other.

PP Velcro: You know, if one were to roll this golf tee covered golf
ball would it roll down hill just like a regular golf ball?

Edju: Oh yes I believe it would.

PP Velcro: Try adjusting the two grids on the electron microscope and
see if you can get a look at the insides of the ball itself. What do
you see?

Edju: There! I just focused my way through the outer membrane and its
green. Inside there's a bunch of stuff. Looks like a core.

PP Velcro: Whatdaya see in the core? Anything interesting?

Edju: Interesting indeed. Looks like the core is a capsid made of
protein called an icosahedral protein. As I look deeper inside the
capsid core I see some genetic material that is coiled kinda like a
spring, that reminds me of a tightly coiled single hair, like from an
African's pubis or like the spring in a ballpoint pen.

PP Velcro: Does that coiled spring-like structure look like anything
you've ever seen here in the virology lab?

Edju: Sure does. It looks like strands of ribo nucleic acid genetic
material. Wow! This is really something to view the outside and the
inside of a virus particle

PP Velcro: Now to ask this question: What kind of virus particle is
this Edju? Have you any idea?

Edju: Sure do. What we've described here is the typical corona virus.
This virus particle is a commensul, a non-parasitic organism, that
lives in the gut of the ferret as well as in other parts of the ferret.
When present in very large numbers it somehow interacts with the gut
lining of the ferret and results in the symptom called ECE or epizootic
catarrhal enteritis, and, to be sure, that just ain't too good.

PP Velcro: You did well, Edju. Say, did you ever think that you could
become a technical writer?

Edju: Who . . . me? Naw, no way Professor Velcro. I just couldn't stick
with that very long.

Edward Lipinski
Aequabiliter et diligenter (Latin: Steadily and diligently)

[Posted in FML 6206]