It wasn’t until 2003 that a team of French researchers discovered the first giant virus. They had been puzzling over sphere-shaped objects that were the size of bacteria but contained no bacterial DNA. Eventually they realized that they were looking at a monstrously oversized virus, containing 979 genes. Those first giant viruses were isolated from amoebae living in water from a cooling tower. Once scientists realized that viruses could be so large, they changed their search parameters and started finding other species in all manner of places, from swamps to rivers to contact lens fluid. nytimes/2013/07/18/science/changing-view-on-viruses-not-so-small-after-all.html?hp&_r=2&
Posted on: Fri, 19 Jul 2013 18:17:50 +0000