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Is the World's Largest Virus a Genetic Time Capsule?

Posted by samzenpus on from the virus-zero dept.

gbrumfiel writes "Researchers in France have discovered the world's largest virus and given it a terrifying name: Pandoravirus. NPR reports it doesn't pose a threat to people, but its genetic code could hint at an unusual origin. The team believes that the virus may carry the genes from a long-dead branch of the tree of life, one that possibly even started on Mars or somewhere else. Other scientists are skeptical, but everyone agrees that the new giant virus is pretty cool."

5 of 111 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Just a little by icebike · · Score: 3, Insightful

    The team believes that the virus may carry the genes from a long-dead branch of the tree of life, one that possibly even started on Mars or somewhere else.

    Other scientists are skeptical

    No shit? That's one heck of an extraordinary claim right there. It'd be very fascinating if true, but that's going to need some strong evidence backing it. Either way, a virus of its size is still quite interesting.

    Dna in the virus. Composed of the same nucleotides found in all life on earth.
    So either all life on earth originated on mars (or somewhere), or these viruses originated on earth.

    One case makes them simply interesting, the other makes for much better headlines and vastly more grant money.

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  2. Hoip! by CuteSteveJobs · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Another example of how great marketing helps get your research funded. The reason this is being widely reported is because they chose a cool name. Pandoravirus. But how does Pandora's box come into this? When it comes to viruses bigger is lamer so size doesn't matter. It is not a threat to people nor anyone else except amoebas. The origins speculation is interesting, but this whole thing is being hyped up by the researchers. And possibly by the amoebas.

  3. Re:discovered a the worst editing by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well, you didn't spot the lack of an apostrophe in "worlds." Maybe editing is tougher than it looks ;)

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  4. Competing theories by Camael · · Score: 4, Insightful

    From TFA. The discoverers:-

    "We believe that those new Pandoraviruses have emerged from a new ancestral cellular type that no longer exists," he says. That life could have even come from another planet, like Mars. "At this point we cannot actually disprove or disregard this type of extreme scenario," he says.

    The naysayers :-

    The virus's size is probably part of its survival strategy. Amoebas and other simple creatures could mistake it for bacteria and try to eat it, opening them up to infection. "The internal environment of the amoeba cell provides a very good playground for acquiring various kinds of genes from different sources," Koonin says. He thinks that the Pandoravirus's unusual genome may be a mishmash of random genetic material it's sucked up from its hosts.

    I cite Occam's Razor -the simplest explanation is usually the correct one. Apologies to the discoverers, but I think its far too early to point to any "ancestral cellular type that no longer exists".

  5. Re:Just a little by nine-times · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Reading the article, I'm not sure if the scientist made the claim:

    That life could have even come from another planet, like Mars. "At this point we cannot actually disprove or disregard this type of extreme scenario," he says.

    So it seems like maybe the reporter posits that it came from Mars, and the scientist said, "Well we can't disprove that right now."