Illustration: Nicole Elmer
Viruses are tiny but their impact on life is huge. This is true not just for people, but for all life forms on earth. Some researchers believe that viruses might just be the most successful of earth’s inhabitants. But why might this be?
To understand this requires looking at the attributes that allow liv...
Illustration: Nicole Elmer
The origin of viruses is a hotly debated topic. It’s unclear how they first evolved. However, there are many ideas floating around out there. There are three classical hypotheses but many new ideas and discoveries challenging them.
The first one is the virus first hypothesis, and states that since viruse...
Illustration: Nicole Elmer
The history of viruses is difficult to trace because they don’t exist in the fossil record. Unlike our beloved dinosaurs, viruses don’t have bones that can be fossilized, and they are just too small and fragile.
However, there is another way viruses can make their mark in the fossil record, and that’s th...
Illustration: Nicole Elmer
Viruses are remarkably diverse. Some have RNA genomes, some have DNA genomes. Others have single-stranded genomes, and some have double-stranded genomes. But within this diversity, they still have common features. They are tiny, with a diameter less than 200 nanometers, hundreds of times smaller than mos...