Photoblog: Infected

You see the most interesting (and dangerous) things processing e-waste. Like this.

On Thursday I was taking a few old hard drives apart, and found one that someone had neglected to run an antivirus programme on. I opened it up to find this white virus eggsac lurking in the lid!


Here's a closer look:


Viruses, being technological marvels, create perfectly spherical eggsacs, coated in a spongy material. It's tough and hard to break through until the virus eggs are ready to hatch and spread via the internet. But if you do break it open, you'll find thousands of eggs (both clear and dark - male and female).


Lucky for me, exposure to normal air kills them (a hard drive is sealed to create a vacuum - viruses love this!). Within seconds of cutting open the eggsac, those that had tried to escape were dead.


Sjoe, that was close!