by Marcia Stone — Evolution is largely driven by conflict, not collaboration, according to cell evolutionist Harmit Malik at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center (FHCRC). Mammalian cells are contentious places, he explains, populated by alien and host genomic sequences fighting for dominance. "In the competition between one gene faction and another, the side…
by Vincent Racaniello — Virulence, the capacity to cause disease, varies markedly among viruses. Some viruses cause lethal disease while others do not. For example, nearly all humans infected with rabies virus develop a disease of the central nervous system which ultimately leads to death. In contrast, most humans are infected with circoviruses with...
Vincent, Elio, and Michael discuss a huge 30,000 year old virus recovered from Siberia, and nested symbiosis facilitated by horizontal gene transfer from bacteria to insect.
In my first year of graduate school I learned that retroviruses are unique among animal viruses in having a "fossil" record, comprised of the hundreds of thousands of endogenous proviruses embedded in the genomes of virtually all animal species (including humans). Those numbers sound big, but these remnants of ancient epidemics are an underestimate, possibly...
