The original version of this story appeared in Quanta Magazine. Ever since viruses came to light in the late 1800s, scientists have set them apart from the rest of life. Viruses were far smaller than ...

The Human Virome Program will analyze samples from thousands of volunteers in an effort to understand how viruses affect health. By Carl Zimmer The viruses we know best are the ones that make us sick ...

161,979 new RNA viruses have been discovered using a machine learning tool that researchers believe will vastly improve the mapping of life on Earth and could aid in the identification of many ...

Using genomics, evolutionary biologists test several hypotheses on the origin of viruses. New evidence suggests they may have emerged more times than previously thought. Corroborating the virus-first ...

We often hear about the importance of the human microbiome – the vast collection of bacteria and fungi that live on and inside us – when it comes to our health. But there’s another, equally important ...

Distinguishing between self and non-self is a critical ability of the immune system. Some pathogens have evolved proteins that resemble those of their host, a mechanism called molecular mimicry, in an ...

Our genomes contain hundreds of genes with antiviral jobs that are called into action when a virus succeeds in infecting one ...