All mysteries
Mystery #2Tier 2microbes / your body

A virus cannot even move on its own, so how does it manage to make you ill?

A virus is astonishingly feeble. It has no legs, no mouth, no muscles, and can't travel a single millimetre under its own steam. It's basically a speck. So how on earth does something that helpless manage to knock you flat in bed with a fever?

Influenza virus particles under an electron microscope, small round and rod-shaped blobs clustered together in grey
Photo: CDC / Cynthia S. Goldsmith and Thomas Rowe · Public domain · via Wikimedia Commons

Your guess

What's your hunch about how something that can't even move could still make you really ill?

There's no single magic word to type, have a go in your own words, then reveal the answer to see how close you got.

Make a guess to unlock the hints and the answer.