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Is the World's Largest Virus a Genetic Time Capsule?
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."
Your meme is broken.
What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
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.
Is it as large as this one?
Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
I think I've seen this show, or was it a different one? Not sure.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I agree with this judgment. It's precise, explicit. Scientific. I find that the LHC and the ISS are pretty cool stuff :-)
It should have been in the summary, but the virus is about a micrometer in length. Which is cool, and huge. Just imagine - a a group of a few thousand, and it becomes visible to the naked eye.
"Researchers in France have discovered a the worlds largest virus and given it a terrifying name: Pandoravirus.
We can't even have the first sentence of a submission checked now?
Sent from my PDP-11
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.
... one that possibly even started on Mars or somewhere else.
Science.
~ Whence do you come, slayer of men, or where are you going, conqueror of space?
Try this one instead: In Soviet Russia, box of Pandoravirus opens you.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I think if you wanted to really terrify people, you'd name it Pandora's Pox.
Pandora is a Greek compound meaning all gifts (pan, as in pantheon--all the gods + dora, pl., as in Theodore--a gift of God). Just an FYI. I'd give the actual Greek but, alas, unicode support on /. does not have the greatest reputation. I see the term thrown about in literature sometimes, and I the think intent can be missed because folks only know the story from Hesiod. I suspect this is what Cameron had in mind when he thus christened the planetary home of his Lakota, er, Powhatan's Algonquin, ah... no, Na'vi, yeah that's what he called the sympathetic characters in his highly original film.
I was thinking more of a Soylent Green paraphrasing with preachy environmentalist overtones:
"It's people. The world's largest virus is people."
The summary says,
"NPR reports it doesn't pose a threat to people"
but the article doesn't say that.
The article says,
... doesn't pose a major threat to human health. "This is not going to cause any kind of widespread and acute illness or epidemic or anything, ..."
From TFA. The discoverers:-
The naysayers :-
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".
No, you're thinking of this show.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
The world's largest virus was discovered a long time ago. It's called Windows 8.
No left turn unstoned.
i.e. Obama is a lizard person and Jesus was a free market capitalist!... At this point I cannot actually disprove or disregard this type of extreme scenario.
His first statement is just right but where does he get some Mars-born virus from? I see nothing that substantiates such a claim. This guy is hitting the pipe too hard.
I heard there is at least one layer of bacon.
rewriting history since 2109
This too. It seems astounding such a narrative would be chosen. We know more about Mars than we do about our own oceans. I feel the oceanographer's pain now; constantly spoken over, ignored, and dismissed. No matter what, their cause just can't getting any love... despite our oceans being the most beautifully unknown and alluring ecosystem/world/etc in the whole universe.
The ocean's alone contain genetic time capsules; viruses and monsters.
In NSA America world's largest virus discovers YOU!
Agent Smith said that better.
Most likely this virus has come from the oceans' depths...
... of mars.
What, that hobbits are a disease?
Welcome to Rivendel, Mr. Anderson.
In the linked npr article it is suspected that amoebas could mistake this virus for a bacteria because of its size and try to eat it. This way the virus would infect the amoeba.
If the size developed only for this most of the genetic material in it could be totally random and meaningless.
Allow me to summarize:
Apparently, scientists understand marketing.
Viruses are not as small as we once thought they were.
Bonus fun fact: amoebas are dumb.
Probably engineered by the Tnuctipun.
We know more about Mars than we do about our own oceans.
Really? We haven't managed to explore more than 60 kilometers of the ocean yet? Are you sure?
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
Summary is misleading. It's not just one species of virus. The article abstract says they found TWO species of these Pandoraviruses. The "possibly started on Mars" is just hype. There's exactly zero evidence of that.
I suspect that in the long term, they'll find abundant evidence that they're related (perhaps not closely) to every other kind of life on Earth. Especially since they are viruses. Viruses can only target particular species of cells and would quickly become extinct in the absense of those species. How could they evolve the ability to infect Earth life on Mars? That makes no sense. If something was going to make it here from another planet and establish itself in our ecosphere, it wouldn't be viruses or any other species that depends on the presence of some particular species already being here.
Sorry, but that statement is still annoying me. Maybe it's the headache I woke up with, I don't know. Scoop a random sample of water, mud, fish tissue, whatever, out of any ocean. Take it to Woods Hole and in a day you'll know more about that ocean than we know about the entire surface of Mars, Venus, Mercury, Europa, and Titan combined. We know comparatively little about their atmospheres, and nothing at all about their subsurface.
our oceans being the most beautifully unknown and alluring ecosystem/world/etc in the currently known universe
FTFY
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
...a terrifying name...
I was going to say, I think Pandavirus is a pretty *cute* name!
Dark Reflection
Venerable virus vacillates, vexingly venting vicious vintage venom. Vaccines vainly value verisimilitude. Vertebrates vie valiantly, vanquishing vestiges vis-a-vis vouchsafed vegetation. Vilified vermin's virility veers, visage veiled, visibly vitrifying. Verdict? Victory.
Uh, no, *not* on Mars. It has nothing to do with Mars. The paper itself makes no mention to such unfounded and outlandish claims.
Am I the only one who thinks Slashdot gets into pseudo-religious conspiracy territory when origin of life from mars....stuff .....is printed?
Wow. Really do some reading, we know nothing about our oceans. A random sample says what? It only says about said sample. In all of my statements, I had been down modded. That's fine my by me; but speaks and represents the lack of critical thinking of /. mods and posters like you.
Thank you for not contributing.
I was the first one to read this story and point out the real hypothesis.... test it mother fuckers... I dare you.... I am *never* been wrong. You incompetent assholes make careers out my pastimes.
/. Bunch of fucking stupid monkeys in a barrel.
I got down modded twice as redundant because some asshat says exactly the same as me. Fuck off you dumb motherfuckers. No one gave as much insight as I had. You stupid pieces of shit. I'm done dealing with
I can walk down to Puget Sound right now, spend half an hour and collect samples of water, rocks, algae, barnacles, sea anemones, jellyfish, flotsam, scum, sand, and air. If I were to take them to the University of Washington labs and have them analyzed I would have considerably more detailed data about our oceans than we've accumulated about the entire surface and atmosphere of Mars. I'm not really sure how much data you think we have about Mars, but even what Curiosity provides will be orders of magnitude less than that which a competent geologist could provide in an afternoon of sample collecting and a week or two in the lab.
We have sampled a half a dozen sites on the entire planet with stationary probes. We've had three rovers, which have covered less than 60 kilometers in nine years (plus Sojourner's few hundred meters). Just the HMS Beagle, with Charles Darwin aboard, sailed thousands of miles, took tens of thousands of samples, and kept scientific researchers busy cataloging and analyzing for years. How on Earth can you imagine that we have more data about Mars than about our oceans? I really don't understand.
"Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin