The story of life’s beginnings gets stranger when you look closely at viruses. These tiny entities seem to sit at the edge of biology. They carry genetic material, but they cannot make proteins on ...

For much of modern biology, scientists argued that viruses are not alive, pointing to a basic limitation: they cannot make proteins on their own and must depend entirely on the cells they infect for ...

The COVID-19 pandemic led to heightened public interest in learning about viruses and how they can cause diseases. There has been a lot of focus on communicating virology concepts to the general ...

A giant virus discovered in Japan is adding fuel to the provocative idea that viruses helped create complex life. Named ushikuvirus, it infects amoebae and shows unique traits that connect different ...

Herpes simplex viruses (HSV) are ubiquitous, double‐stranded DNA viruses that establish lifelong infections in human hosts. Central to their cycle is the process of membrane fusion, which permits ...

Antibiotic resistance is rising fast, killing tens of thousands each year in the U.S. alone—and scientists are racing to find ...

While largely unnoticed, phages do not harm humans. On the contrary, these viruses are gaining increasing popularity as biomedicines to eradicate pathogenic bacteria, especially those associated with ...

The cold season is in full swing, throats are scratchy and noses are running. We feel ill and hope it is not the flu. The ...

A few months into his postdoctoral research at Baylor College of Medicine in 2021, Rafael Michita made a curious observation. Peering at Zika viruses infiltrating placenta cells under a microscope, he ...

When scientists sent bacteria-infecting viruses to the International Space Station, the microbes did not behave the same way they do on Earth. In microgravity, infections still occurred, but both ...

Plant viruses represent a major threat to global food production and security, with an estimated burden of approximately 30 billion USD dollars per year. Despite their economic importance, viral ...