Solved cryptogram
A virus cannot reproduce on its own. It has to get inside a cell and use the works in there.
Biology Facts, sourced to MedlinePlus.
Solve it yourself
This fact is a cryptogram here: 71 letters over 18 different ones, graded easy.
Or go to the puzzle’s own page first.
What it means
This is why it is arguable whether a virus is alive. Outside a host it does nothing at all: no eating, no growing, no reacting, just a package of genetic material in a protein shell that can sit inert for years. Once inside a cell it hijacks the machinery already there and turns it to making copies. Antiviral drugs are hard to design for exactly that reason, since almost everything the virus uses belongs to the patient.
The claim comes from MedlinePlus.
- SourceMedlinePlus
- CollectionBiology Facts
- Difficultyeasy
- Length71 letters, 18 of them different
Nearby in the collection
The facts either side of this one.
- NCBI Bookshelf: Molecular Biology of the Cellmedium, 75 letters
- MedlinePlusmedium, 72 letters
- MedlinePlus, National Library of Medicinemedium, 70 letters
- NIAIDmedium, 77 letters
About as hard as this one
Scored closest to it by the model behind our guide to solving cryptograms.
- NCBI Bookshelfeasy, 75 letters
- National Human Genome Research Instituteeasy, 77 letters
- Brain Research Bulletineasy, 74 letters
- NCBI Bookshelfeasy, 77 letters