Archives for posts with tag: virus

People who have a variant of the gene IFITM3 means that they get flu symptoms more severely, and this form of the gene is more common in China.

Read the original paper in Nature Communications.


A virus called a phage can zap the bug that triggers acne, Propionibacterium acnes. Researchers have sequenced the virus’s genome, and might be able to use this to develop a future treatment that stops spots. Yay!

Researchers have partly sequenced the genome of the second case of the new coronavirus that has emerged in the Middle East (the patient currently in London), and confirmed that it is the same virus as that infecting the man who died in July. They have also confirmed that it is not the came as the virus that causes SARS.

Viruses aren’t really alive because they don’t have cells and don’t use energy, but they aren’t really dead either, because they reproduce and evolve. Viruses were first spotted in 1892.

From 20 Things You Didn’t Know About… Viruses from Discover Magazine

A week’s worth of posts to celebrate yesterday’s DNA Day. Viruses are usually described as DNA viruses or RNA viruses. However, researchers have found a virus where its genome (its genetic material) is a hybrid of both RNA and DNA. This appears to be because the two types of viruses combined at some point in its evolution, but it’s not yet clear how.

The Acanthamoeba polyphaga mimivirus, a virus than infects a type of amoeba (a single-celled animal) has the largest genome of all viruses, at 1.2 million base pairs.



%d bloggers like this: