Month: September 2022

GIANT GENETIC RESERVOIR. “Every second, approximately 10(23) viral infections occur in the ocean. These infections are a major source of mortality, and cause disease in a range of organisms, from shrimp to whales. As a result, viruses influence the composition of marine communities and are a major force behind biogeochemical cycles.“ https://lnkd.in/gPgnbG9 View in LinkedIn

LESS THAN ONE PERCENT. “Due to sampling and cultivation challenges, genome-level viral diversity remains poorly described and grossly understudied in nature such that

NASA 20 year time-lapse of planet earth. https://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2017/the-changing-colors-of-our-living-planet View in LinkedIn

UK considers tax on single-use plastics to tackle ocean pollution https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/18/uk-considers-tax-on-single-use-plastics-to-tackle-ocean-pollution?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other View in LinkedIn

'Political watershed' as 19 countries pledge to phase out coal https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/nov/16/political-watershed-as-19-countries-pledge-to-phase-out-coal?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other View in LinkedIn

GENE SOUP. “The estimated 10(28) viral infections in the ocean per day substantially affect marine systems by causing host mortality, facilitating horizontal gene transfer and influencing biogeochemical cycles via production of dissolved organic matter through cell lysis. An emerging paradigm is that viruses also possess auxiliary metabolic genes (AMGs) —‘host' genes that may be expressed to augment viral-infected host metabolism and facilitate production of new viruses.” https://lnkd.in/eTUuJwS View in LinkedIn

VERY NEW FINDING. “Bacteriophages, or viruses that infect bacteria, have been known to science for less than a hundred years and remain at the periphery of our perception of life.” https://lnkd.in/gPxMKj9 View in LinkedIn

BACTERIOPHAGES AND VIRUSES. “And as the most numerous biological entities on the planet, with great—if far from fully understood—relevance for global nutrient cycling and gene dispersal, phages and other viruses represent an important and largely unexplored frontier in ecology.” https://lnkd.in/gPxMKj9 View in LinkedIn

AS IF TAXONOMY and the description of viruses were not challenging enough, viral quasispecies completely mock the tidy idea of species. Mutant viral swarms flicker in an ever-changing broth of variant strains, ultimately defying our ability to characterize globally these chamelion geniuses of kaleidoscope adaptation. https://lnkd.in/gDaeFeM View in LinkedIn

MUTANT SWARMS. "Viral quasispecies are currently defined as collections of closely related viral genomes subjected to a continuous process of genetic variation, competition among the variants generated, and selection of the most fit distributions in a given environment." https://lnkd.in/dC3CR5F View in LinkedIn