New research led by the Doherty Institute has found the SARS-CoV-2 virus has the ability to momentarily accelerate its evolutionary pace, enabling variants to emerge more rapidly than other viruses.
Evolution
Feb 24, 2022
1
164
Think your DNA is all human? Think again. And a new discovery suggests it's even less human than scientists previously thought.
Biotechnology
Mar 22, 2016
7
945
In recent years, giant viruses have been unearthed in several of the world's most mysterious locations, from the thawing permafrost of Siberia to locations unknown beneath the Antarctic ice. But don't worry, "The Thing" is ...
Cell & Microbiology
May 8, 2020
8
1576
Viruses are tiny but mighty intruders that can be found in the environment including in human bodies, and they can play a variety of roles in ecosystems. Viruses also come in a range of sizes. Some are even larger than bacteria, ...
Molecular & Computational biology
Mar 9, 2022
0
17
The sex of human and all mammalian babies may be determined by a simple modification of a virus that insinuated itself into the mammalian genome as recently as 1.5 million years ago, a new Yale University-led study has found.
Cell & Microbiology
Mar 31, 2016
9
253
A new study led by researchers at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) and Swansea University Medical School furthers our knowledge of viruses—in the sea and on land— and their potential to cause life-threatening ...
Cell & Microbiology
Jun 5, 2019
0
413
Jean and Peter Medawar wrote in 1977 that a virus is "simply a piece of bad news wrapped up in proteins." The 'bad news' in the SARS-CoV-2 case is the new coronavirus carries its mysterious genome in the form of a very long ...
Biotechnology
Apr 9, 2020
0
631
A study of the full genetic code of a common human virus offers a dramatic confirmation of the "out-of-Africa" pattern of human migration, which had previously been documented by anthropologists and studies of the human genome.
Cell & Microbiology
Oct 21, 2013
0
0
By analysing virus genomes from over 7,500 people infected with Covid-19, a UCL-led research team has characterised patterns of diversity of SARS-CoV-2 virus genome, offering clues to direct drugs and vaccine targets.
Evolution
May 5, 2020
0
1217
A multidisciplinary study published in Nature has elucidated the structure of the machinery responsible for writing much of our "dark genome"—the 98% of our DNA that has largely unknown biological function. These results ...
Biotechnology
Dec 14, 2023
0
160
