viruses
If every virus was wiped off the earth, ‘the world will be a wonderful place—for about a day and a half, and then we’d all die’
If given the choice to magically wave a wand and cause all viruses to disappear, most people would probably jump ...
Dead or alive? The cosmology of viruses
Viruses are an inescapable part of life, especially in a global viral pandemic. Yet ask a roomful of scientists if ...
Infographic: 3 factors affecting how viruses jump from animals to humans
Raina Plowright of Montana State University is working with infectious disease experts, ecologists, and a range of other scientists to ...
Mysterious Brazilian virus made largely of genes never seen illustrates ‘how much we still need to understand’ about microorganisms
Viruses are some of the world’s smallest life-forms – and the jury is still out as to whether they actually ...
Here’s a virus that CRISPR can’t touch—it could help researchers gain better control of the gene-editing tool
Bacteria and phages are likely locked in an arms race. The former evolve new kinds of scissor enzymes, and the ...
Programming CRISPR to fight viruses could lead to new treatments for Ebola, Zika
CRISPR is usually thought of as a laboratory tool to edit DNA in order to fix genetic defects or enhance ...
‘Marsupial-enabled time machine’: How a Koala virus is giving researchers insights into the human genome
A koala retrovirus, or KoRV, has been rolling through koala populations in Australia from the north to south. It’s passed among the ...
Directed evolution tool could force viruses to churn out new drugs ‘in a matter of days’
Evolution is one of nature's most impressive forces, allowing organisms to adapt to changing environments to survive. By harnessing and ...
Can the flu cause Parkinson’s and other brain disorders?
One of the earliest links between influenza and neural dysfunction was a correlation between the 1918 Spanish flu, caused by ...
Can vaccines be supercharged by CRISPR, creating ‘one-and-done’ virus protection?
Vaccines are risky or ineffective in people with compromised immune systems, they don’t even exist for several viral diseases, and ...
New cousin to deadly Ebola virus discovered in bats in China
The notorious filovirus family — which includes such dangerous actors as the Ebola and Marburg viruses — seems to just keep ...
How 100-year-old tissue samples could rewrite the Spanish flu’s deadly history
Late one night Michael Worobey began poking around on the internet, looking for descendants of a World War I British ...
We’ve long neglected the human virome—now we need to figure out what all those viruses do
A continuous war is fought on our body surfaces, and we haven’t a clue who’s winning ...
Using machine learning to hunt for the origins of new viruses
When a new virus crops up in people, health authorities face an urgent question: Where did it come from? Thousands of viruses ...
How bacterial CRISPR defense systems are defeated by suicidal virus attacks
The natural world abounds with examples of predators that cooperate to take down their prey. And such teamwork also exists ...
Even as managed honeybee colonies hit record numbers, another threat to their health is identified: Mystery viruses
The quest to figure out what's behind honeybee deaths has become as much a political question as a scientific one. Recent ...