What is freaky about noro and other viruses

[mooki]

Viruses like all forms of life are driven primarily by the need for survival and replication. I was reading about this parasite that infects an insect from water it drinks. Then the parasite grows feeding off the bug's tissues, and it then takes over the insects behavior, causes it to find water source and jump in. Then the parasite bursts out of the bug and reproduces in the water to start the process all over again. It's brilliant when you think about it from the parasite's perspective.

Noro is much the same way. This virus wants to survive. It enters your body, starts replicating like crazy in its prime environment which is your gastrointestinal system. Then it takes over your nervous system and sends signals to your brain telling it to vomit and have diarrhea. This act will cause millions of virus particles to spew into the environment ensuring that it finds another host so that it can continue it's survival. The virus has no consciousness and couldn't care less about you. We are just it's means of surviving and it is using our bodies to reproduce and using our vomiting function a convenient way to spread itself to new hosts so that it can replicate and spread even more. When someone with noro vomits in a room and spreads it to others, that virus has done its job and ensured its own survival into the future. It exist for no other reason than to replicate itself. If Noro didn't make you vomit and have diarrhea the virus would've died out shortly after it evolved. Frantically pushing the vomit button in your brain is how it finds news hosts since its time in your body is limited to a few days before your immune system defeats it. What's strange is to put it in an evolutionary perspective. It took this virus tens of thousands of years to "figure out" how our DNA works so that it can hijack our nervous system and send signals to our brain in order to aid the virus in spreading itself. Dogs have viruses that have spent eons figuring out their DNA so dog viruses can't effect people and vice versa. We are all terrified of this microscopic nemesis called norovirus yet it is totally indifferent to us. It's just looking for the same thing we are. To survive and replicate.