8 Facts about "Virus" - Atharva Nava

The adjective “viral” was first used in 1948.
The plural form of the virus is “viruses,” not “viri” or “virii.”
The smallest viruses are about 20 nanometers in diameter, while the largest viruses are about 400 nanometers in diameter—which is roughly the size of the smallest bacteria.
If you put an average-size virus next to a flea, that’s about the same as putting a human being next to a mountain that’s twice the size of Mount Everest!
Viruses come in all sorts of shapes, and one of the most common is the icosahedron, a shape that looks like a sphere but is actually a 20-sided polygon.
Dutch microbiologist Martinus Beijerinck used the Latin phrase “contagium vivum fluidum,” which means “soluble living germ,” to describe viruses before he coined the term “virus.”
The English word “virus” comes from the Latin word “virus,” which means “poison” or “snake venom.”
The term “virion” is also used to refer to a single infective viral particle.

8 Facts about “Virus”