On episode #249 of the science show This Week in Virology, Vincent, Dickson, Alan and Rich discuss an estimate of the number of different mammalian viruses on Earth. You can find TWiV #249 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.
How many different viruses are there on planet Earth? Twenty years ago Stephen Morse suggested that there were about one million viruses of vertebrates (he arrived at this calculation by assuming ~20 different viruses in each of the 50,000 vertebrates on the planet). The results of a new study suggest that at least 320,000 different …
