Most viruses are small and carry minimalist genomes. Even one of the largest small viruses, Vaccinia, measures merely one-fiftieth the size of a pollen grain and contains only 270 genes. Giant viruses ...

In northwest Spain, scientists screened 526 wild small mammals for zoonotic viruses and identified several viruses, such as hantavirus, orthopoxvirus, and arenavirus. Their findings have been ...

Viruses are among the biggest threats to humanity, with the current pandemic showing how these pathogens can shut down countries, halt entire industries and cause untold human suffering as they spread ...

An overlooked subgroup of bat viruses may be just one minor mutation away from being able to infect humans and potentially set off the next pandemic. This is the warning of a team of U.S.-based ...

I’ve had it up to here with viruses lately. It’s easy in these times to wonder whether there’s anything good about them. That made me curious about why viruses exist in the first place, and where they ...

WEST LAFAYETTE, Ind. — There is no cure for the common cold. But there are cures — or at least vaccines — for other viruses, and researchers are working hard to build a toolbox to be able to rapidly ...

From a horror-movie plot to real life: Scientists have revived ancient "zombie" viruses from permafrost and discovered they could still infect living single-celled amoebas. The chances of these ...

Besides serving as food for certain microbes, viruses perform some helpful functions that remain poorly understood. A ciliate, a type of single-celled microbe, swims next to Sphagnum moss, amplified ...