Eli5: why do bacteriophages look like tiny robots?

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They look so surreal. Like they were build or sth. And they arent even alive.

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Anonymous 0 Comments

Small viruses are _so tiny_ they are made of a small number of protein units stuck together rather like you’d build something out of legos. Cells (and larger living things) are made of a truly staggering number of molecules so they are “blobby”…there’s no structure or straight lines because there are just so many molecules that they can be pretty much any shape.

But not these viruses. They are small, rigid protein constructions…and that gives them straight lines and geometrical angles that resemble those of robots.

Here’s a couple views showing the actual proteins of a particular bacteriophage so you can maybe see what I mean

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/330079268/figure/fig2/AS:712803031715847@1546956894810/Structural-model-of-bacteriophage-T4-The-enlarged-capsomer-shows-the-major-capsid.png

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/9a/T4_Bacteriophage.gif/1024px-T4_Bacteriophage.gif

You see, you can actually make an _atomic scale_ model of these things, they have so few parts.

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