Biology's next revolution

This article really is worth reading. "The emerging picture of microbes as gene-swapping collectives demands a revision of such concepts as organism, species and evolution itself....a defining characteristic of life is the strong dependency on flux from the environment — be it of energy, chemicals, metabolites or genes." Gene transfer by viral vectors has been shown also in higher organisms (like ourselves) making us all, more than we realize, part of a symbiotic meshwork.