Slashdot Mirror
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."
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 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."
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".
The article, as in scientific paper, is quite clear on this. There is no signs that anything close to vertebrates are infectable.
The world's largest virus was discovered a long time ago. It's called Windows 8.
No left turn unstoned.
In NSA America world's largest virus discovers YOU!
Most likely this virus has come from the oceans' depths...
... of mars.
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.
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