Alien Virus and Bacteria

I've thought this for years and everyone I talked to about it to just said "It's still a virus." There are viruses and diseases only certain animals can get because those viruses evolved to infect those animals. I can't imagine a virus from another world being adaptable enough to be a threat to us considering how different we would be from the species of its world.

If the other life forms are carbon based, they probably have some kind of virus that could affect us, or other earth animals. Not necessarily saying it's going to kill us, because obviously it's not designed to do that, but it could infect us and mutate into something that could. Or not. It's all a toss up anyway.

>>8582939
>carbon based

cell based would make more sense
also
if we ever encountered some kind of "universal" extraterestiall virus it could be very dangerous for all earth life

>>8582939
>If the other life forms are carbon based, they probably have some kind of virus that could affect us, or other earth animals.
Generally viruses are very specific about which organisms they can infect.

>>8583027
>if we ever encountered some kind of "universal" extraterestiall virus it could be very dangerous for all earth life
Why? Universality generally implies a lack of optimisation. "Jack of all trades, master of none" and all that.

The fun thing about infinite possibilities in an infinite universe is that any question about aliens can be answered with "probably". It's entirely possible an alien virus can not only infect humans but be completely undetectable and incurable by modern medicine. Sure a virus found found on some random alien world probably won't even be able to get inside this thing called a "cell", but do you really want to take that chance?

>>8582917
>earth life all came from the same place

>>8582917
>Why is it whenever this topic comes up people assume alien virus are compatible with earth biology enough to be a threat?

Blame War of the Worlds.

>>8583047
thats not far from truth
only exception are some bacteria with arsen based dna livikng somewhere in a lakie witch name I forgot

>>8583037
>"Jack of all trades, master of none"
thats why I said it could, not have to
it could just work like living cells based grey goo

What if there are alien microbial spores that germinate when exposed to damp, moist places. These could potentially be fatal even if they don't have a biology compatible with ours.

I could see bacteria being able to infect FAR more likely than viruses.

Bacteria don't technically depend on the host's cells to replicate, just the host's nutrition. As long as the host has some kind of carbon source for the bacteria to eat, I think a bacterial infection might be possible.

>>8583076
>only exception are some bacteria with arsen based dna livikng somewhere in a lakie witch name I forgot

That was dismissed as bullshit years ago. They simply use arsenate to degrade some cell components and use the resulting phosphorus on the DNA molecule.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GFAJ-1

>>8582917
>Convergent evolution means that potential aliens would likely even share the same DNA and cell structures as earth life or something that earth and alien viral forms can exploit interchangeably?

No, it means that despite having completely different DNA they would likely share similar features with other organisms.

Having water and living tissue (and the nutrients that come with them, sugar, minerals, etc) is probably enough for most fungal or bacterial organism to thrive. Having no defense against foreign organisms would likely mean our orifices would be feeding ground to them.

>>8582917
Are you telling me that little ayylmaos could infect me?