For much of modern biology, scientists argued that viruses are not alive, pointing to a basic limitation: they cannot make proteins on their own and must depend entirely on the cells they infect for ...

Microbiologists Patrick Moreira and Purificación López-García, together with virologists Arturo Ludmir and Lynn Enquist, are at the center of a sharp debate over whether viruses count as living ...

High-throughput neutralisation tests could lead to a better understanding of the evolution of human influenza.

A giant virus discovered in Japan is adding fuel to the provocative idea that viruses helped create complex life. Named ushikuvirus, it infects amoebae and shows unique traits that connect different ...

In 1990, I finished my PhD on primate evolution and went to my postdoc in Davis, California, USA. It was meant to be on fruit fly ...

In a new study, published in Cell, researchers describe a newfound mechanism for creating proteins in a giant DNA virus, comparable to a mechanism in eukaryotic cells. The finding challenges the dogma ...

Russell has a PhD in the history of medicine, violence, and colonialism. His research has explored topics including ethics, science governance, and medical involvement in violent contexts. Russell has ...

Vaccinating birds against bird flu reduces the spread of the disease, but may have unintended consequences. This is the warning of a new paper in the journal Science Advances, which concluded that ...

Scientists at the University of Vienna, Austria, have screened great ape specimens obtained from natural history museums to identify DNA viruses. This groundbreaking study provides unique insights ...

Study: Ancient evolutionary origins of hepatitis E virus in rodents. Image Credit: Shutterstock AI / Shutterstock.com A recent study published in PNAS describes the evolutionary origins of hepatitis E ...