In a quiet freshwater pond in Ibaraki Prefecture near Tokyo, researchers have pulled from the water a microscopic giant that is forcing biologists to rethink how complex life began. The newly ...

Scientists in Japan have discovered a previously unknown giant virus, offering new insight into this enigmatic category of viruses – and possibly also into the origins of multicellular life. The virus ...

The researchers took a “safety-first” approach. They deliberately excluded all viruses that infect humans or animals from the ...

Viruses that infect bacteria can still do their job in microgravity, but space changes the rules of the fight.

Vaccinating birds against bird flu reduces the spread of the disease, but may have unintended consequences. This is the ...

In the early, uncertain days of the coronavirus pandemic, scientists delivered one comforting pronouncement: The virus that caused COVID mutates rather slowly. If that remained true, the virus would ...

Most of the articles on this blog have talked about evolution as though it were somehow distant, something that happens to unfamiliar organisms and doesn't really affect our daily lives. Nothing could ...

Michael Worobey's lab has circled the globe for clues to how killer viruses jump into humans and then spread worldwide. Think "CSI" for HIV: Researchers have collected traces of viral DNA from ...