virology blog
About viruses and viral disease
The development of high throughput nucleic acid sequencing tools has rapidly increased the pace of virus discovery in the past 20 years. Yet in that time, while the largest DNA genomes have increased by nearly ten times, the largest known RNA viral genome has only increase in size by a tenth. This situation has now changed with the discovery of new RNA viruses of planarians and mollusks.
[Read more…] about Planaria and mollusks yield the biggest RNA virus genomes
Imagine that we could change all the mosquitoes in the world so that they would no longer take a blood meal, and then consider the impact on transmission of viruses and parasites. Before you say impossible, you should know that Nature has already done it – not all mosquitoes take blood meals.
[Read more…] about Mosquito blood feeding is not a free lunch
Project Premonition, a Microsoft Research project that uses drones to capture mosquitoes and analyze them for pathogens, preprint servers, and three mouse models for Zika virus induced birth defects are the topics of episode #390 of the science show This Week in Virology.
You can find TWiV #390 at microbe.tv/twiv, or listen below.
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Download TWiV 390 (97 MB .mp3, 134 min)
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On episode #187 of the science show This Week in Virology, Vincent and Rich discuss recovery of a hepatitis B viral genome from a 16th century Korean mummy, and personal omics profiling of an individual over a 14 month period.
You can find TWiV #187 at www.microbe.tv/twiv.