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The World's Largest Really Small Thing

Posted by timothy on from the bacteria-envy dept.

nut writes "The Beeb has a story on the discovery of the world's largest virus. It is nearly the size of a bacterium and lives in amoebae commonly found in your air-conditioning system. It has been linked to pneumonia in people, but isn't known to cause disease itself. More reports here(1), here(2) and here(3)."

20 of 28 comments (clear)

  1. Dupe of yesterday's story by SteWhite · · Score: 3, Informative

    It's a dupe. Original here.

    1. Re:Dupe of yesterday's story by mythr · · Score: 4, Funny

      Oh yeah? What I really hate is all the duplicate posts telling us about the duplicate posts telling us it's a dupe.

    2. Re:Dupe of yesterday's story by mgblst · · Score: 1

      True, it is a dupe, but not many people were interested in that article, perhaps they thought that it needed a wider audience. Or at least that not many people would notice. Personally, I love all things virus.

  2. D... by Loosewire · · Score: 1

    Dooop de dooop dooodeydooodey do DUPE

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  3. More reports... by guinnessnwhiskey · · Score: 1

    More reports here(1), here(2) and here(3).

    ...and here(4)

  4. so what if its a dupe?? by CableModemSniper · · Score: 2, Insightful

    This one has a much better, clever title, that references a previous story!

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    Why not fork?
  5. RUN FOR THE HILLS! by Froze · · Score: 3, Funny

    Oh My God, worlds largest virus is duplicating! At this rate we will all be taken over by rampant duplicate posts^H^H^H^H^H virus' before you know it.

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    -- The morphemes of your disquisition are ascertainable, but they have eschewed an ambit of transpicuous exposition.
    1. Re:RUN FOR THE HILLS! by Tablizer · · Score: 1

      I would like to see a large discussion on duplicate story detection technology and algorithms. Obviously human-centric methods are not very effective.

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      Table-ized A.I.
    2. Re:RUN FOR THE HILLS! by damien_kane · · Score: 1

      The problem with that logic is as follows:
      /. editors post duplicates, therefore they don't actually read /.
      Since they don't read /., why would they see an article on duplicate detection algorithms?

      As well, since it is commonly known that noone actualy reads the articles, why should the /. editors?

      Between these two points, a discussion on dupe detection would be trite.

  6. Ready for this one? by Henry+V+.009 · · Score: 3, Funny

    No....Tony Blair's the dupe.

  7. Nice try by Sabbath.sCm · · Score: 3, Funny

    Not the fastest dupe in the world, but it was a nice try nevertheless.

  8. New topic area: Dupes by Bourbon+Man · · Score: 5, Funny

    I think they should start a new topic area, maybe with a copying machine for an icon. Then put all of timothy's posts in there from now on. Maybe an annual awards ceremony each year (The Slashy Awards) and Most Dupes could be a catagory.

  9. Not A Dupe by Stinson · · Score: 2, Informative

    The First article everyone thinks is the original (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/03/ 28/230236&mode=thread&tid=134), is about a very large fungus that grows in the woods.
    The second article that everyone thinks is the dupe (http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/03/ 29/1647251&mode=thread&tid=134), is about a virus that grows in a water tower.
    They might be related items as they are talking about the largest of each species, they are NOT the same article.
    rtfa ('manual' replaced for 'article')

    1. Re:Not A Dupe by Stinson · · Score: 1

      My bad then, i had noticed people saying about dupe on the front page, so i guess i assumed

    2. Re:Not A Dupe by NicoNet · · Score: 2, Informative

      This article is a dupe of http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/03/2 8/1751226 though, this article and that article are both about the Mimivirus.

  10. Re:Jesus Efin Christ by Stinson · · Score: 1

    Don't the so-called 'editors' read the site???

    Do you read the site?

    http://science.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=58887& cid=5623172

  11. Re:Jesus Efin Christ by Sandman1971 · · Score: 1

    I do.. do you????
    http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=03/03/2 8/1751226&mode=thread&tid=99

    Guess you don't.

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  12. This story appears to be a meme virus by bigsexyjoe · · Score: 1

    It's going to get worse and get reposted over and over again.

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    1. Re:This story appears to be a meme virus by boy_afraid · · Score: 1

      No it isn't, bitch! You aren't the first poster!

  13. Hmm.... by barakn · · Score: 1

    What disturbs me even worse than the fact that the article is a dupe is that one of timothy's links, here(2), is an article on SARS, which is to the best of my knowledge completely unrelated to the mimivirus. Either there is a serious lack of editorial control or wild speculation.

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